The gamer community got a nasty surprise last weekend. Web application security specialists reported that, on Saturday morning, US users of the online game World of Warcraft Classic began reporting multiple service failures; hours later, Blizzard Entertainment confirmed that the platform was under a denial of service (DDoS) attack.
“We can confirm that the reported flaws
are due to a DDoS attack; we’re working to fix the inconveniences and restore
normal game operation,” the company said via a statement.
Hundreds of users began searching for
information related to attacks against World of Warcraft on various forums for
hackers and gamers until, a few hours later, the information appeared.
According to web application security experts, through a Twitter account called
UkDrillas, a supposed hacker group claimed responsibility for the DDoS attacks,
even warned about the attacks shortly before the connection problems began.
“In approximately 30 minutes all servers that power World of Warcraft PvP
online will be attacked,” mentions one of the tweets on this account.
In addition, the operators of this Twitter
account claimed that this would not be the only incident, as a new DDoS attack
had already been scheduled for Saturday at 6:00 PM, Eastern US time. So far the
company has not confirmed the veracity of these tweets, mention the web
application security specialists.
Due to the incident, the company’s forums were
infested with user feedback angered by the inability to access the platform,
and it had been more than two hours since the problems began in World of
Warcraft and Blizzard
had not yet mentioned any details. It was also not known when the game’s
servers would be restored.
Around 3 p.m. on Saturday, the company reissued
an update mentioning that some services were still disconnected due to attacks:
“A significant portion of our users in the US continue to experience
failures in the service, we thank you in advance for your patience.”
Finally, around 20:30 on Saturday, the company
confirmed that the intrusion ended and the servers had already been restored.
“All World of Warcraft features are back online; the problems could
continue for some players,” Blizzard’s message mentions.
According to web application security
specialists from the International Institute of Cyber Security (IICS) online
video game platforms have become one of the main targets of DDoS attacks;
malicious users may even hire these classes of services online. Last year, the
FBI shut down dozens of websites that offered DDoS attacks for hire against
individuals and companies.