With Christmas almost upon us, many will be turning to Steam, Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network to play a few rounds of their favourite games before opening something new and exciting tomorrow morning. However if memory serves correctly, the last few years have been mired with takedowns of Xbox Live and the PSN by nefarious hacking groups, spoiling many a Christmas gaming session - especially considering always on single player experiences are becoming far more common.
It may well be that something similar happens this year and people are certainly worried about that. Once upon a time the likes of Kim Dotcom could buy off groups with free-MEGA keys, but that's no longer the case as he was publicly shamed for it last year by the same group he bought off back in 2013.
That group however has been fractured since then. A number of arrests were made in the wake of the last hack and some were even convicted and jailed for lengthy terms.
New groups however have come forward to threaten take downs of the services when they're at their busiest on Christmas day. Although those groups seem less serious and credible than previous threats, you never know what they can do until they try.
The question is, have Microsoft and Sony beefed up their protective measures to counter these sorts of attacks? If not, they could be facing a lot of angry customers on Christmas day, once again.
