• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About Darknet
  • Hacking Tools
  • Popular Posts
  • Darknet Archives
  • Contact Darknet
    • Advertise
    • Submit a Tool
Darknet – Hacking Tools, Hacker News & Cyber Security

Darknet - Hacking Tools, Hacker News & Cyber Security

Darknet is your best source for the latest hacking tools, hacker news, cyber security best practices, ethical hacking & pen-testing.

Hackers Targeting Xbox Live Players with DoS Attacks

February 25, 2009

Views: 7,683

[ad]

Well the day has come when money-minded botnet owners have turned their services towards online gaming. For a small fee (USD20) you can get someone to set you up with the software to ‘boot’ people from the Xbox Live network.

It’s always been a problem in gaming, if something can get hold of your IP address they can DoS you off the network or at least make it so laggy you can no longer play properly.

Most legacy games however were hosted on central or public servers so that wasn’t an issue, but with Xbox live most of the games are hosted by one of the participants – so that guy effectively has access to everyone’s IP address.

Xbox Live is being targeted by malicious hackers selling services that kick players off the network.

The booting services are proving popular with players who want a way to get revenge on those who beat them in an Xbox Live game.

The attackers are employing data flooding tools that have been used against websites for many years.

Microsoft is “investigating” the use of the tools and said those caught using them would be banned from Xbox Live.

“There’s been a definite increase in the amount of people talking about and distributing these things over the last three to four weeks,” said Chris Boyd, director of malware research at Facetime Communications.

Yah so Microsoft is going to ban them? I bet they are really bothered, the guys making the money probably don’t even use the tools themselves apart from testing and if they do they probably use hijacked accounts.

The poor schmucks who are going to get banned are the ones who have paid the hackers to set them up with some tools they don’t really understand.

It seems like it’s really picked up in the last month or so and is becoming a serious issue on the Xbox Live network.

“The smart thing about these Xbox tools is that they do not attack the Xbox Live network itself,” he said.

He said the tools work by exploiting the way that the Xbox Live network is set up. Game consoles connecting to the Xbox network send data via the net, and for that it needs an IP address.

Even better, said Mr Boyd, games played via Xbox Live are not hosted on private servers. “Instead,” he said, “a lot of games on Xbox Live are hosted by players.”

If hackers can discover the IP address of whoever is hosting a game they can employ many of the attacks that have been used for years against websites, said Mr Boyd. One of the most popular for the Xbox Live specialists is the Denial of Service attack which floods an IP address with vast amounts of data.

In basic terms they are just using a traditional DDoS attack on Xbox Live players, there’s no special or new technology involved here. Whoever is at the receiving end would have their net connection disrupted – not just their connection to Xbox Live.

With an estimated 17 million players on the Xbox Live network this could become a significant issue and as with any kind of DoS attack it’s really quite difficult to prevent.

Unless they change the whole architecture and make the hosting centralized – then they have to take the brunt of the bandwidth and infrastructure costs rather than with the current peer-to-peer hosting system.

Source: BBC (Thanks Navin)

Share
Tweet
Share
Buffer
WhatsApp
Email
0 Shares

Filed Under: Exploits/Vulnerabilities, Hardware Hacking, Networking Hacking Tools Tagged With: dos



Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. anona says

    February 25, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    Darknet is so out of date. This has been reported on many sites before here that aren’t even involved with hacking.

    While darknet have provided some interesting articles in the past, the content has become stale and out of date.

    Darknet has lost it’s space on my RSS.

Primary Sidebar

Search Darknet

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Advertise on Darknet

Latest Posts

SUDO_KILLER - Auditing Sudo Configurations for Privilege Escalation Paths

SUDO_KILLER – Auditing Sudo Configurations for Privilege Escalation Paths

Views: 211

sudo is a powerful utility in Unix-like systems that allows permitted users to execute commands with … ...More about SUDO_KILLER – Auditing Sudo Configurations for Privilege Escalation Paths

Bantam - Advanced PHP Backdoor Management Tool For Post Exploitation

Bantam – Advanced PHP Backdoor Management Tool For Post Exploitation

Views: 328

Bantam is a lightweight post-exploitation utility written in C# that includes advanced payload … ...More about Bantam – Advanced PHP Backdoor Management Tool For Post Exploitation

AI-Powered Cybercrime in 2025 - The Dark Web’s New Arms Race

AI-Powered Cybercrime in 2025 – The Dark Web’s New Arms Race

Views: 526

In 2025, the dark web isn't just a marketplace for illicit goods—it's a development lab. … ...More about AI-Powered Cybercrime in 2025 – The Dark Web’s New Arms Race

Upload_Bypass - Bypass Upload Restrictions During Penetration Testing

Upload_Bypass – Bypass Upload Restrictions During Penetration Testing

Views: 510

Upload_Bypass is a command-line tool that automates discovering and exploiting weak file upload … ...More about Upload_Bypass – Bypass Upload Restrictions During Penetration Testing

Shell3r - Powerful Shellcode Obfuscator for Offensive Security

Shell3r – Powerful Shellcode Obfuscator for Offensive Security

Views: 704

If antivirus and EDR vendors are getting smarter, so are the tools that red teamers and penetration … ...More about Shell3r – Powerful Shellcode Obfuscator for Offensive Security

Understanding the Deep Web, Dark Web, and Darknet (2025 Guide)

Understanding the Deep Web, Dark Web, and Darknet (2025 Guide)

Views: 8,896

Introduction: How Much of the Internet Can You See? You're only scratching the surface when you … ...More about Understanding the Deep Web, Dark Web, and Darknet (2025 Guide)

Topics

  • Advertorial (28)
  • Apple (46)
  • Countermeasures (227)
  • Cryptography (82)
  • Database Hacking (89)
  • Events/Cons (7)
  • Exploits/Vulnerabilities (431)
  • Forensics (65)
  • GenAI (3)
  • Hacker Culture (8)
  • Hacking News (229)
  • Hacking Tools (684)
  • Hardware Hacking (82)
  • Legal Issues (179)
  • Linux Hacking (74)
  • Malware (238)
  • Networking Hacking Tools (352)
  • Password Cracking Tools (104)
  • Phishing (41)
  • Privacy (219)
  • Secure Coding (118)
  • Security Software (233)
  • Site News (51)
    • Authors (6)
  • Social Engineering (37)
  • Spammers & Scammers (76)
  • Stupid E-mails (6)
  • Telecomms Hacking (6)
  • UNIX Hacking (6)
  • Virology (6)
  • Web Hacking (384)
  • Windows Hacking (169)
  • Wireless Hacking (45)

Security Blogs

  • Dancho Danchev
  • F-Secure Weblog
  • Google Online Security
  • Graham Cluley
  • Internet Storm Center
  • Krebs on Security
  • Schneier on Security
  • TaoSecurity
  • Troy Hunt

Security Links

  • Exploits Database
  • Linux Security
  • Register – Security
  • SANS
  • Sec Lists
  • US CERT

Footer

Most Viewed Posts

  • Brutus Password Cracker – Download brutus-aet2.zip AET2 (2,292,253)
  • Darknet – Hacking Tools, Hacker News & Cyber Security (2,173,074)
  • Top 15 Security Utilities & Download Hacking Tools (2,096,614)
  • 10 Best Security Live CD Distros (Pen-Test, Forensics & Recovery) (1,199,675)
  • Password List Download Best Word List – Most Common Passwords (933,466)
  • wwwhack 1.9 – wwwhack19.zip Web Hacking Software Free Download (776,133)
  • Hack Tools/Exploits (673,289)
  • Wep0ff – Wireless WEP Key Cracker Tool (530,145)

Search

Recent Posts

  • SUDO_KILLER – Auditing Sudo Configurations for Privilege Escalation Paths May 12, 2025
  • Bantam – Advanced PHP Backdoor Management Tool For Post Exploitation May 9, 2025
  • AI-Powered Cybercrime in 2025 – The Dark Web’s New Arms Race May 7, 2025
  • Upload_Bypass – Bypass Upload Restrictions During Penetration Testing May 5, 2025
  • Shell3r – Powerful Shellcode Obfuscator for Offensive Security May 2, 2025
  • Understanding the Deep Web, Dark Web, and Darknet (2025 Guide) April 30, 2025

Tags

apple botnets computer-security darknet Database Hacking ddos dos exploits fuzzing google hacking-networks hacking-websites hacking-windows hacking tool Information-Security information gathering Legal Issues malware microsoft network-security Network Hacking Password Cracking pen-testing penetration-testing Phishing Privacy Python scammers Security Security Software spam spammers sql-injection trojan trojans virus viruses vulnerabilities web-application-security web-security windows windows-security Windows Hacking worms XSS

Copyright © 1999–2025 Darknet All Rights Reserved · Privacy Policy