The hacker who ruined Christmas: Teen guilty of shutting down PlayStation

A teenager who helped to ruin Christmas for millions of children by shutting down the PlayStation and Xbox networks has been convicted of 50,700 offences. But despite being part of the Lizard Squad network that has taken credit for major hacking attacks over the last few years, the 17-year-old user - known as “zeekill” - was let off with a slap on the wrist. He was given a two-year suspended sentenced by a court in Finland - where he has not been named by local media as he is a minor - and ordered to fight cybercrime as part of his rehabilitation.

Basically he’ll be monitored for 2 years by the local police. Gotta love Finland :).

Lizard Squad tweet

The identities of Lizard Squad’s members were shrouded in mystery until security analyst Brian Krebs published a blog post naming some of the suspects, including zeekill who was identified as Julius Kivimaki, earlier this year. Lizard Squad’s attacks on PlayStation and Xbox saw the consoles’ online gaming networks knocked offline for several days in late December. In April, zeekill was also implicated in an online harassment campaign against a 20-year-old. Espoo District Court also found him guilty of tampering with servers at MIT and Harvard University, as well as money laundering.

All the people that said we would rot in prison don’t want to comprehend what we’ve been saying since the beginning, we have free passes.

Lizard Squad tweet

Technology Lizard Squad