Posted on January 21, 2020 at 3:48 PM

Ubisoft Files a Lawsuit Against DDoS-For-Hire Sites

Gaming Company Ubisoft is going after websites that were selling DDoS services utilized to launch an attack on Rainbow Six Siege Servers. In September last year, the company announced that it was going to sue those websites selling DDoS attack services to players of its R6S game.

The lawsuit has been filed against five persons who are charged for operating four DDoS-for-hire services used on a recent attack on the multiplayer servers of Rainbow Six Siege. The lawsuit was filed last week, which concluded a legal process that began five months ago.

As at the time, Ubisoft discovered that there were more incidents of DDoS attacks on its R6S games, and it decided to investigate that. The company realized that the DDoS attacks were a result of a recent update is made on a game at that time. The attack caused the company to reset the global player ranking.

R6S fund out that the DDoS attack could allow them to cheat on the game and gain more rankings on the portal. They utilized the opportunity by launching the DDoS attack, which forced their opponents to disconnect from the game. Once the opponents disconnect, it gives the other player that launched the DDoS attack unearned victory.

Ubisoft decided to go hard on the new development as it was faced with the threat of game availability and the possibility of losing immense profits if the game is shut down.

One week after the game was rolled out, the gaming company announced certain countermeasures and penalties to guide against any unfavorable practice by gamers. The penalties include bans for players that used DDoS attacks to gain an undue advantage against other opponents. Ubisoft also pointed out that it was going to sue the DDoS-for-hire services that facilitated the attack.

At first, many thought the company was joking and not able to carry out the threat. However, Ubisoft said the company witnessed a 93% reduction in DDoS attacks, which shows that the countermeasures produced positive results.

Nigeria’s Kelvin Uttih, Maximilian Kuehl( Germany), and Dennis Kruk (Germany) are the defendants for the lawsuit. Another individual from the Netherlands was only identified as B.R. while the fifth defendant was only identified by his email address as apple.id12343@gmail.com.

According to Ubisoft, there were four DDoS-for-hire services: stressed-stresser-stressing-stressers.com, r6s.support, r6ddos.com, and SNG.one.

Ubisoft pointed out that these five made significant revenues by advertising their DDoS-for-hire services to R6S players. According to the game company, the defendants offer these services for fees ranging from $11 per month to $300 for those who want lifetime access.

Ubisoft also demands financial compensation

Ubisoft is now arranging to charge the five accused persons to court, as it seeks financial compensation for the cost incurred and damages caused.

The complaint revealed that the activities of the defendants had made Ubisoft spend so much time and a lot of money to mitigate the damage caused by the DDoS attacks and the DDoS service.

The damage includes employing additional personnel to monitor the game and discover DDoS attacks, spending time and resources to respond to players’ complaints, developing technology that could mitigate the DDoS attack, using traffic management technologies and employing new networks to stop the damaging effect of the DDoS attack.

Ubisoft also revealed that it had to reduce the number of games per server to reduce the impact of the attack. This has surely impacted negatively on the company’s profits potentials, according to Ubisoft. The company has spent a significant amount of resources because of the DDoS attack, and it’s within its rights to demand compensation for such loss, Ubisoft concluded.

Although there are several other DDoS-for-hire services that players have used to gain their undue advantage on the portal, Ubisoft went for only four particular services. However, there is a reason for that.

One of the reasons is the fact that these four websites were basically built to attack Ubisoft. Based on the information released on the report, one of those sites added unique DDoS attack modes used to attack the R6S servers.

Secondly, the defendants boasted about their ability to attack the R6S servers. The report revealed that the DDoS service providers taunted the security plans of Ubisoft. That is another reason why Ubisoft took it upon itself to identify and sue the culprits.