Science

Man arrested in Xbox, Playstation network attacks

Police in the U.K. say they have arrested a man in northwest England following cyberattacks this past Christmas on the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox networks.

Both networks suffered long outages over Christmas

The Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox networks suffered long outages over Christmas after a major distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack.

Police in the U.K. said on Friday they had arrested a man in northwest England following the 2014 cyberattacks on Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox networks.

Both suffered long outages over Christmas after a major distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack. A hacking group calling itself Lizard Squad, which had attacked the two networks earlier last year, claimed responsibility.

"Officers ... have arrested a man in Southport, Merseyside this morning as part of an investigation into 'swatting' and computer hacking offences," Merseyside police said in a statement.

The officers had worked closely with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the operation, it added.

No further details of the arrest were immediately available.

Swatting is a term used to describe criminal activity by an individual or group who provide false information to law enforcement agencies in the United States, suggesting that a threat exists at a particular location so that police respond with tactical units.