Blizzard’s online matchmaking service which is used by it’s most popular titles, such as Overwatch, Heartstone(Blizzard’s successful mobile/handheld multiplayer strategy card game) and World of Warcraft was put down yet again by another crippling DDoS attack earlier today. This wouldn’t be the first time the online service has been the target of a group bored yet skilled hackers. As for now, the attack has been sorted and the servers are accessible.
Blizzard confirmed during the early morning hours today via it’s twitter handle that it’s Battle.net servers had been crippled by DDoS(Denial of service) attack. The attack caused latency and connection issues in any and all of Blizzard’s multiplayer titles such as Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
We continue to actively monitor an ongoing DDOS attack against network providers, affecting latency/connections to our games. #BlizzCS
— Blizzard CS – The Americas (@BlizzardCS) August 3, 2016
If anyone’s kept count, this would be the third time this week that Battle.net has gone offline with this attack being the first time the publisher came out with any sort of explanation or confirmation. Players across all platforms(PC, Xbox One, and PS4) let out on twitter to make sure the matter was heard by the game publisher.
Although it can’t be set in stone as of yet which group or individual was behind this attack, the infamous hacker activists who go by the name of PoodleCorp have claimed responsibility(for reference, this was the same group which claimed responsibility for all of the initial pokemon server outages). This is a well known splinter organization of the former cyberattack group LizardSquad that has disturbed the servers for Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Battle.net repeatedly over the last few years.
Blizzard (NA) #Offline #PoodleCorp
— PoodleCorp (@PoodleCorp) September 18, 2016
While the network issues during the September 13 and September 16 outages were associated with Battle.net’s authentication servers, the latest DDoS barrage today was an assault on the online services that run the multiplayer networks for pretty much all of the company’s games.
As for now, the DDoS attack is over and you can get back to avoiding real life. The company tweeted saying,
The DDoS attacks from earlier have ended and players can now log into BattleNet. We are investigating reports of World Server Down in WoW
