Lizard Squad has launched an early version of its alternative to online drugs marketplace Silk Road, just several weeks after teasing the release.
Early adopters of Shenron can sign up on the hackers’ website to take an early look at the product’s dashboard, which also incorporates the group’s distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) tool Stresser but appears to have limited functionality right now.
Though it appears no drugs have yet been put up for sale, consumers can already add funds to the platform in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency which is often used by criminals to hide illicit transactions.
Several packages for Stresser, which floods websites or services with traffic in order to disrupt and shut them down, can also be bought for $10 (£6.50) to $50 (£32) for a single concurrent attack, with lifetime subscriptions also available.
Whilst the dashboard has yet to include pages for "black" search engine optimisation or spamming services previously promised, there is a dedicated support page where users can submit queries to Lizard Squad about any aspect of the platform.
The last few days have seen the group seemingly target Xbox Live and Daybreak Games in a repeat of previous attacks against gaming networks in the run up to Christmas.
The hackers appear increasingly focused on making money from Stresser and the other services in recent months, having started hacking websites and networks for little more than amusement.
Despite this ambition many have quibbled their technical capabilities, pointing to similarities between Stresser and the similar tool titaniumstresser, as well as a leak of an unencrypted database of the group’s customers, as evidence of incompetence.
Tweets from Lizard Universe, an account seemingly operated by the group, even confirmed that "an outside source" had stopped the recent attacks on Xbox Live, in a rare moment of humility from the group.
