Hacking group Lizard Squad have reportedly struck again, taking down Facebook and Instagram worldwide. The two social media sites were down for approximately an hour from 6am GMT following the cyber attack.
The two social media giants, both owned by Mark Zuckerberg, appeared with error messages in the US, Europe and Asia, yet Facebook refuse to identify what caused the outage.
Following the blackout, Instagram posted a tweet acknowledging the ‘outage’, stating that they were ‘working on a fix’. Facebook similarly stated that they were trying to resume normal service as quickly as possible.
Yet Facebook and Instagram were not the only casualties, with dating app Tinder, AOL’s Instant Messenger and HipChat also victims to the attack.
Lizard Squad, the hacking group who are thought to be behind yesterdays Malaysia Airlines hack, seemed to take responsibility on Twitter.
Suggesting that Twitter, if not the group’s main communication channel, could have been a victim with the tweet ‘If only we didn’t use twitter to communicate’, the group posted the following tweet:
The social media platforms have since resumed normal service.
David Emm, principal security researcher at Kaspersky Lab, commented: "Facebook, Instagram and Tinder were down this morning, apparently the latest victims in a stream of DDoS attacks targeting high-profile organisations."
"Although the sites were only down for around an hour, any period of unplanned downtime can not only result in financial losses, but severe reputational damage, leading to the loss of valuable customers."
This latest alleged hack follows a string of recent high profile attacks which have brought Lizard Squad into the public eye. The group has laid claim to attacks on the PlayStation Network, and the video game streaming site Machinima.
There has been arrests made in connection with the group, yet the hackers have not been deterred, making a promise there was more to come following today’s attack, tweeting:
