Xbox boss Phil Spencer has been talking with his rivals to see how they can avoid a repeat of the Christmas Xbox Live and PSN downtime. It’s very rare for console manufacturers to work together on anything, but the DDoS attacks on Xbox Live and PSN over Christmas have been enough for Microsoft to initiate conversations with its two rivals. ‘I don’t think it’s great when PSN goes down,’ Spencer told Game Informer. ‘It doesn’t help me. All it does is put the fear and distrust from any gamer that’s out there, so I look at all of us together as this is our collective opportunity to share what we can about what we’re learning and how things are growing. Those conversations happen, which I think is great.’ He added that the Christmas attacks had been a ‘learning experience’ and that, ‘Our commitment to Xbox One customers is to make sure our service is robust and reliable’. Although Xbox Live seemed to recover more quickly from the attacks than Sony, and Nintendo weren’t affected at all, there is no easy defence against DDoS as they’re not really hacking (no data was stolen or accessed) and simply involve overloading a server with requests. As a result it’s not clear what defences Spencer was discussing with Sony and Nintendo, but it is good to know they’re at least talking. Source: http://metro.co.uk/2015/03/06/microsoft-sony-and-nintendo-collaborating-to-stop-ddos-attacks-5091159/

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Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo collaborating to stop DDoS attacks