Xbox Live is now alive and kicking following a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack that rendered the network futile for hours, as reported by users in the United States and parts of Canada.

"Xbox Live currently down across essentially the entire U.S and southern Canada, I haven't been able to connect on any of my three xbox consoles in over 30 minutes, but I clearly still have internet, anyone else?" a post in one of Reddit's forums said.

Several users have described outage as not being able to connect to the service at all, while some noticed that their friends lists were altered.

Another user noted that his American IP is affected.

"Yeah. It's pretty funny, I was using a VPN to get American IP, and it said there is something wrong with my internet connection.

"But if I switch back to my Asia IP, I can play fine. Though that my VPN has some problem."

As of this time, all Xbox Live services including Core Services, Purchase and Content Usage, Website, TV, Music, Video, and Social and Gaming are "up and running".

Lizard Squad, a notorious hacking group, took credit for this particular assault via Twitter.

Xbox Live Support Page has offered information and user FAQs about DDoS attacks.

Hacking has become a second nature of the age of internet. The anomalous activities carried out by various individuals and groups have taken steps further not only in the gaming realm, but the entire online world.

The DDos attack on Xbox Live is not the first time. Sony's PlayStation has been plagued by hacking incidents several times this year.

In fact, the same group also claimed responsibility for the attacks on the PlayStation Network and Sony Entertainment Network last August.

Such attacks will clog the network with artificially bloated traffic.