A Christmas hack on Microsoft and Sony gaming networks that affected more than 150m people worldwide was reportedly carried out by a group including a former Richmond College student.

Richmond and Twickenham Times:

The PlayStation and Xbox gaming networks were offline for 14 hours on Christmas Day following a DDoS, or a distributed denial of service attack, which flooded the main servers with high traffic, rendering them unusable.

A group of hackers named Lizard Squad, which has a monocle-wearing lizard as its emblem, claimed responsibility for the attack, following a series of Twitter posts indicating they would target Xbox over the festive period.

Vincent Omari, part of Lizard Squad, said the attack was intended to demonstrate weaknesses in the Microsoft and Sony systems, but the members had been referred to as the “Grinches of Christmas” for bringing down the network on Christmas Day.

The 22-year-old, who denies having any part in the attack itself, said: “I started getting contacted by people asking me to stop hacking Microsoft and Sony on Christmas Day, and the next day I woke up with the Sun, Sky News and the Daily Mail calling and emailing me.

“I didn’t give an interview to the Mail but they still published an article basically saying I was the leader of the group.”

Mr Omari, who lives in Strawberry Hill and is studying network security and ethical hacking, said police had visited his home but he has not been charged with an offence.

He said his personal details had been made public by a rival group of hackers, but his role within the Lizard Squad was solely as a spokesman.

Internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom discussed the attack in a video uploaded to Youtube, criticising the timing of the group.

He said: “Hacking is one thing but taking down an entire gaming network when people have just got their Christmas gifts is taking it a notch too far.”