The hacking group Lizard Squad has attacked the gaming site Machinima, defacing the front page and apparently taking control of the domain name.
Visitors to the site are now presented with an text art image of the Lizard Squad’s reptilian logo, with credit for the hack attributed to Criminal, Jordie, Pain and Plague.
Writing on Twitter, Lizard Squad said: "Machinima goons’ challenge was accepted. http://machinima.com now under new management. Thanks. Now, do something."
WHOIS records for the domain name still listed the registrant as Machinima Inc, but the admin and tech contacts had been altered to Lizard Squad, alongside an email address from their Russian based site belonging to the group.
A few hours earlier the group had claimed one of its "lizards" had been released from prison, adding a mock apology to the "Internet Police".
Lizard Squad has been resurgent in the past week, having claimed responsibility for attacks on mobile news website and GSMArena and the Xbox Live gaming network.
Earlier this year it the group was about to disband, having spent the summer targeting PlayStation, online role-playing game Runescape and the streaming platform Twitch, as well as a rare non-gaming hit against the Vatican.
Yet now the group appears to be planning a large attack around Christmas, having posted messages to that effect on Twitter.
