Gang that took down Skype to target Steam - just as the Steam summer sale hoves into view

CyberTeam hackers won't make themselves popular by targeting Steam

The gang behind the outage that affected Skype earlier this week have indicated that they intend to target Steam, the popular PC gaming service, next.

The gang, which calls itself CyberTeam and claims to be based in Portugal, claimed responsibility for disrupting Microsoft's Skype service on Monday and Tuesday this week causing connectivity problems for users across the world.

Skype claims that it has made some configuration changes to better withstand the impact of such attacks in future.

But subsequent tweets from CyberTeam indicate that they are planning to attack Steam, run by Valve Software.

"We will be more ‘aggressive than LizardSquad !!! Steam, the day is coming..." the gang tweeted yesterday.

Lizard Squad conducted a series of DDoS attacks in 2014. Their activities took down online game League of Legends, the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live.

They also conducted a series of attacks against gaming networks over Christmas 2014, struck at more than 3,000 Tor network relays and, in January 2015, took down the Malaysia Airlines website using the "cyber caliphate" moniker.

However, a number of their members - which Wikipedia pins at seven - have been apprehended and charged with various computer- and fraud-related crimes.

The Steam summer sale is expected to begin on Thursday at 6pm, UK time. One of the highlights of PC gamers' years, Steam sales typically feature popular games at big discounts, which can be downloaded and played immediately.

Such an attack would affect as many as 125 million users, with the service supporting as many as 12.5 million concurrent users at any one time.

However, Steam won't be an easy nut to crack. The service has been the subject of DDoS attacks in the past, and Valve Software has taken action accordingly to make its service more resilient.