The hacker group calling themselves Lizard Squad might be more aptly called the Grinches who stole Christmas - at least, by those who wanted to enjoy the holidays by using Xbox Live or PlayStation Network to play games with their friends and family, and by Xbox and Sony employees who were called in on Christmas Day to deal with a DDoS attack that took down both services.

Hackers can be difficult to catch, but it seems that one Lizard Squad member didn't cover his tracks well enough. 22 year-old UK resident Vinnie Omari was arrested earlier this week after law enforcement agents from the South East Regional Organized Crime Unit raided his home and confiscated all of his electronic devices.

When contacted by The Daily Dot, Omari confirmed the raid and posted a photo of the search warrant, which states that his property was being searched for evidence in connection to two cases: Paypal fraud that involved the theft of funds from several accounts between 2013 and August 2014, and "the hacking of the PlayStation network and Xbox Live systems over the Christmas period." Omari told The Daily Dot in an email that the police took "everything," including his console, phones, laptops and USBs.

It appears that the police are taking the Paypal fraud slightly more seriously than the downtime of Sony and Microsoft's services, as a press release by the Thames Valley Police only mentions the cyber fraud offences and nothing about Xbox Live or PSN attacks. Omari was released on bail until March 10th 2015.

The Daily Dot also reported last week that the FBI is allegedly investigating a Lizard Squad members known as "ryanc", who is said to be about 16 or 17 years old and living in Finland. The kind of attacks that the group carried out are not particularly sophisticated, but they could land these young people in a whole lot of trouble.

Source: The Daily Dot