October Internet Attack Targeted PlayStation Network, Researchers Say

A single videogame player with a grudge might have caused the massive internet failure that made hundreds of websites inaccessible last month, researchers say.

The Oct. 21 attack on network service provider Dyn rendered more than 1,200 websites unavailable by blocking access to the Manchester, N.H., company's domain name system, an indispensable part of the internet's address book.

But the ultimate target of the attack appears to have been the PlayStation Network, an online-gaming service operated by Sony Corp., according to two sources familiar with the attack who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to comment publicly on the continuing investigation.

Level 3 Communications Inc. Chief Security Officer Dale Drew detailed some of the research in testimony prepared for a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the attack scheduled for Wednesday. Level 3 runs one of the world's biggest internet backbones and said it has identified several networks of infected cameras, digital video recorders and other machines—known as botnets—available for hire.

"We believe that in the case of Dyn, the relatively unsophisticated attacker sought to take offline a gaming site with which it had a personal grudge," Mr. Drew said in remarks prepared for the hearing. The attacker rented time on the botnet to carry out the attack, he said.

Dyn disputed the findings. The attack traffic that appeared to target Sony was part of several waves of data from at least three separate botnets, said Chris Baker, Dyn's manager of monitoring and analytics.

"It's a very convenient explanation," Mr. Baker said, but "it's based on an incomplete view of the data."

A Sony spokesman was unable to immediately comment.

Sony and other online gaming networks have been the object of continuous attacks over the past two years, typically brought by online gamers seeking notoriety.

Security research firm Flashpoint has also concluded that "a gaming network was attacked," by a distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attack during the Oct. 21 incident, according to researcher Allison Nixon. "The people that run in these circles consider this a status symbol," she said. "It's like a power trip."

Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 15, 2016 18:55 ET (23:55 GMT)

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