Millions of children and adults who received the latest video games were prevented from playing them on Chirstmas thanks to a DOS attack on Xbox and PlayStation networks.

USA Today:

Online game networks Xbox Live and PlayStation Network were knocked offline much of Christmas Day in an apparent DDos (distributed denial of service) attack.

Taking credit for the takedown: a group called Lizard Squad, which previously claimed credit for August attacks on the PlayStation Network and online games World of Warcraft and League of Legends.

Both networks were still having problems Friday morning. The network status Web page for Xbox Live showed service as being back up but "limited," while PSN was still officially offline.

It caps off a rough holiday season for Sony, which saw its Sony Pictures subsidiary hit by a cyber-attack last month over the upcoming release of The Interview. A hacker group called the Guardians of Peace threatened a 9/11 type attack on theaters if the movie was shown.

Some futurists are saying that 2015 is going to be the year of the robot.  I think it's going to be the year of the hack.  The sociopaths and emotional teenagers who desperately need attention – along with governments, organized crime outfits, and political activists – are going to make this a miserable year for computer users.

The bottom line: we're losing an arms race to these hackers.  They are able to overcome our efforts to protect our networks faster than we can improve them.  And it doesn't appear that anything or anyone is safe from their depradations.