Privacy News New DDoS Attacks Cripple Blizzard's Network Two Days in a Row

[BoraMurdar]

Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind many of today's most popular games, has been hit by two more DDoS attacks, one today and another one yesterday, after being previously targeted on Sunday night too.

Just like the first DDoS attack, PoodleCorp took credit for the attacks through a series of tweets posted on their account.

The DDoS attacks crippled Blizzard's user authentication servers, but unlike the Sunday attacks, these didn't target the company's servers directly, but Blizzard's ISP provider.

If you think for one second that users understood Blizzard's conundrum, you're wrong. Just like many times before, users flocked to Twitter and left typical "Blizzard upgrade your servers!" comments.

The first DDoS attack hit Blizzard on Tuesday around mid-day, US time, while the second hit the company today, four hours before this article. Both attacks lasted for three hours before.

In total, this was the fifth large-scale DDoS attack launched by PoodleCorp against Blizzard, with two more attacks carried out in August.

Just like the previous attacks, the hackers seem to be setting small challenges, asking gamers to retweet a message more than "x" times before stopping the attack.

Back in August, the source code of PoodleCorp's DDoS botnet leaked online, helping security researchers shut down the vDos DDoS-for-hire service, which the group was using as a backbone.

 

[Tony Cole]

I understand what a DDoS attack is, but what's the entire point, is it just to stop the site from earning money/loyalties?

 

[ElectricSheep]

IMO its just a load of people out to ruin other people's fun when they target gaming servers

 

[exCode]

Damn, I thought Blizzard's servers would be big enough to stop these kind of attacks.

 

[Tony Cole]

I wonder how much top security companies charge to protect massive servers, and ones that actually work?

 

[exCode]

I wonder how much top security companies charge to protect massive servers, and ones that actually work?

That's actually a pretty good question. I bet only companies with BOATLOADS of money like Google, Amazon, and Facebook pay for ones that actually work.

 

[Tony Cole]

Well saying this (I know this isn't a DDoS attack) but if one person can hack the US Government is any company safe?

 

[conceptualclarity]

IMO its just a load of people out to ruin other people's fun when they target gaming servers

No, I think they're practicing for bigger fish. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2016/09/someone_is_lear.html