Posted on June 27, 2023 at 7:29 AM
Blizzard Games Targeted By A DDoS Campaign That Took Diablo IV Offline
Blizzard Games has once again been targeted by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. The recent DDoS campaign made it impossible for gamers to access the newly-released Diablo IV. While Blizzard Games has since averted the attack, the frequent exploits on the platform have the players worried about reliability.
Blizzard Games targeted by another DDoS attack
The Diablo IV game was released by Blizzard Games earlier this year. The launch was met with much enthusiasm from the players. However, over the weekend, the players expressed their frustration over the inability to connect to the game after servers were targeted by a DDoS attack that lasted for hours.
The cyberattack targeted the servers operated by the developer of Diablo IV, Activision Blizzard. The servers are used to authenticate the users and make it possible for them to link to games. The recent issue has made it nearly impossible for players to access some of the games that were worst hit by this attack.
Some of the games that were affected by this campaign include Diablo IV, World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. The DDoS attack lasted for over ten hours, lasting for the most part of the weekend. The attack was mitigated on Sunday per a statement that was shared by Blizzard on Twitter.
Activision Blizzard has yet to reveal the hacker group behind the attack. Moreover, no hacker has come forward to claim responsibility for this campaign. Activision Blizzard has urged users that are still facing issues accessing Diablo IV and other games to troubleshoot to regain connectivity.
Activision Blizzard was targeted by multiple cyberattacks
Activision Blizzard has been targeted by a wide range of hacking campaigns. The frequency of these attacks is frustrating players who are usually unable to connect to games. DDoS campaigns are intended to overload a server with traffic to take it offline, which is an issue that has affected a majority of games that are supported by Blizzard.
However, DDoS campaigns are not usually damaging or sophisticated in nature. As such, it is possible for a targeted entity to mitigate and avert such attacks. However, besides DDoS exploits, Blizzard has been the target of more sophisticated hacking campaigns that have compromised sensitive information.
Earlier this year, the company was the victim of a phishing campaign. The company confirmed that threat actors had obtained access to its internal systems using a phishing SMS message that was sent to an employee.
In September last year, the company servers were hit by another major DDoS campaign that prevented many users from playing the supported games on their computers. In the following month, in October, Blizzard faced issues with the release of Overwatch 2.
Overwatch 2 was a highly anticipated video game by Blizzard. However, the game did not have a smooth launch because of connectivity issues that made it impossible for the players to access the game.
Diablo IV and Overwatch are fully-online games. Such games are highly dependent on connectivity. However, while an online presence adds some level of efficiency to the games, it makes them highly vulnerable to cyberattacks. As players have to be connected to the internet to play, an offline server will definitely affect the gameplay experience.
The frequency of cyberattacks on Blizzard Games has attracted much criticism from the gaming community. The community has raised concerns over Blizzard’s strategy of making its game available solely with internet access because of the many challenges faced.
The dependence on online servers creates inequalities in accessing the internet while also affecting speed. The games might also witness slow loading times during the weekends when many players are online, and traffic is at peak levels.
Besides these DDoS campaigns, the hackers behind such exploits also use a wide range of methods, including malware distribution and phishing campaigns, to target the victims. Players on these online games have to take caution to ensure that they do not fall victim to such issues.
However, Blizzard Games is not the only developer that is facing issues with cyberattacks. Last week, Cyble researchers detected that a malicious game installer on Super Mario was being used to target victims through the SupremeBot malware.
The researchers have also noted that hackers rely on game installers to spread malware, as games usually have a vast user base. Moreover, users also trust game installers as it is perceived to be legitimate software.
Earlier this month, the Cyble researchers detected a phishing campaign that targeted Russian-speaking players on Enlisted. The hackers behind this exploit used a fake website that looked similar to the official Enlisted website.
