The web servers of Blizzard Entertainment have suffered a series of massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks over the weekend causing disconnection and latency issues in Blizzard Games including World of Warcraft and Overwatch.
The attacks started hitting Blizzard on August 13th when the company’s official customer support Twitter account stated that “We’re currently investigating an issue affecting our authentication servers, which may result in failed or slow login attempts.”
We're currently investigating an issue affecting our authentication servers, which may result in failed or slow login attempts. #BlizzCS
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) August 13, 2017
After few minutes, in another Tweet, the company said: “We are currently monitoring a DDOS attack against network providers which is affecting latency/connections to our games.”
We are currently monitoring a DDOS attack against network providers which is affecting latency/connections to our games. #BlizzCS
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) August 13, 2017
Furthermore, the attack also crippled Paypal payment option for Blizzard. “We are currently experiencing issues with Paypal as a payment option. We are actively looking into this. Apologies for the inconvenience,” the Tweet said.
We are currently experiencing issues with Paypal as a payment option. We are actively looking into this. Apologies for the inconvenience!
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) August 13, 2017
A look at DownDetector, a platform that keeps an eye on popular sites suffering service outage or cyber attacks showed that the attack started around 11:28 AM EDT affecting website, log-in, and server connection.
Hi, I keep getting ‘world server is down’ for the past 4 hours, while my friend can just log into the same server with the same wifi.
— Dana (@V_ermilli0n) August 13, 2017
I feel so sorry for blizzard they do so much to make their games great and when they are fixing them for us everyone just whines
— Sydney ⭐️ (@SydneyStar14) August 13, 2017
At the time of publishing this article; some users were still facing login issues, but it is still unclear who was behind these attacks. Previously, Blizzard had been targeted by PoodleCorp hacking group, however, since the group is not active anymore it is quite possible that a new attacker or attackers have arrived to ruin users’ weekend.
It must be noted that this is the second time in a week that Blizzard suffered issues with their service. On August 9th, Blizzard entertainment faced technical problems affecting Overwatch when its Summer Games 2017 went live.
