Hackers take down Twitch after Amazon buy-out

Twitch.tv went offline yesterday thanks to a targeted attack on its servers by a hacker group known as Lizzard Squad. The reasoning behind the attack is currently unknown, but it's likely a response to Amazon's acquisition of the game streaming platform yesterday. The retail giant announced it was buying out Twitch for $970 million, a move criticised by many gamers who think it's simple profiteering.

We're not yet sure what Amazon's plans for Twitch are, but it's probably too soon to tag Bezos' firm with nefarious intentions. The hacker group previously attacked Sony's PS4 network to highlight the firm's lack of focus on security measures for its services. The DDoS, or distributed denial of service, is a fairly simple method of taking down a site. One, though typically multiple, systems will use software to flood Twitch servers with packets, effectively causing a crash.

It's basically feigning huge amounts of traffic that the servers can't handle, leading to a 'denial of service' for the average user looking to watch some game footage. Despite the ease, it's still an impressive feat considering Twitch's servers are built to handle very large amounts of traffic, hosting 55 million unique visitors in July.

Right now Twitch.tv seems to be functioning as normal, but there's no telling whether Lizzard Squad will resume its attack on Amazon's latest acquisition.

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