DDoS Attack Confirmed

[Clavaat]

What I don't understand is why anyone would target XIV. The population of the game is not as vast as other games that have been targeted. Can 1 person jaded by square conduct such an attack?

There could be a few reasons:

- Political Agenda - SE is Japan-based. In the past, with FFXI, it was due to relations with Korea.
- Possible Blackmail - Unlikely, but it happens. Attacking groups will make demands, and won't stop until they are met.
- Boredom - People like to see what they are capable of. Even though a DDoS attack isn't impressive, it still gets them off.

Probably other reasons, but until someone comes forward or they are able to determine who is behind it, we won't know.

[Danbo05]

Don't hold your breath on compensation. That said, awful suspicious that the attacks coincide with the 2.41 launch. I'm thinking it's some script kiddy try-hards who are angry at the easing of Second Coil. Guess they really are butt-hurt over losing their 'precious' exclusivity.

It was going on the day before patch as well.

[Drako]

I kind of suspected this sort of thing has been going on. But I think SE isn't admitting the full length of time this has been going on. You can check back and see several threads of people complaining about getting dropped from instances. Even groups of people doing coil struggling because they keep having half there people drop. I know there's been something unusual going on for a couple months at least. I have a handful of people in my FC that started having strange issues with the game. Getting dropped, lagging/rubber-banding. They've all spent a lot of time and effort to try resolving it on their end to no avail. They even tried WTFast, just out of desperation. This felt so much like that DDoS attack that hit FFXI years and years ago. It just started out small and got bigger and bigger until finally it gets to this point. GL getting it resolved SE, we know you'll get it done. You've been down this road b4, so has just about every successful MMO.

[Tiggy]

I kind of suspected this sort of thing has been going on. But I think SE isn't admitting the full length of time this has been going on. You can check back and see several threads of people complaining about getting dropped from instances. Even groups of people doing coil struggling because they keep having half there people drop. I know there's been something unusual going on for a couple months at least. I have a handful of people in my FC that started having strange issues with the game. Getting dropped, lagging/rubber-banding. They've all spent a lot of time and effort to try resolving it on their end to no avail.

It's entirely unrealistic to think they've been getting DDoS'd for months. Meanwhile there is an exceptional amount of evidence showing that the connections between backbones at level3 have had problems for years even before FFXIV started. Most US users must go through these poor backbone connections before hitting the game serer. Even apps like WTFast are only but so effective at routing around major internet choke points. Especially when there are few viable options to go around it.

Just because people have connection problems doesn't automatically make it a DDoS, or even a server issue. There is a vast and complicated network between the players and the server that causes quite a bit of problems.

[Felis]

Was the NA/EU servers the target of the attack, or the whole Montreal datacenter?

[Fornix]

What I don't understand is why anyone would target XIV. The population of the game is not as vast as other games that have been targeted. Can 1 person jaded by square conduct such an attack?

It doesn't have to be directed at just FFXIV. Motivations are often not clear until someone steps forward and claims responsibility of a DDoS attack. And yes, one person jaded by square may conduct such an attack. Botnets consisting of hundreds of infected computers may be rented to perform such attacks. There's a relatively big market for these sort of shady practises. Heck, if your own computer isn't protected sufficiently it may even be part of a botnet and be hammering servers. Often without your knowledge.

[SayuriHime]

It doesn't have to be directed at just FFXIV. Motivations are often not clear until someone steps forward and claims responsibility of a DDoS attack. And yes, one person jaded by square may conduct such an attack. Botnets consisting of hundreds of infected computers may be rented to perform such attacks. There's a relatively big market for these sort of shady practises. Heck, if your own computer isn't protected sufficiently it may even be part of a botnet and be hammering servers. Often without your knowledge.

That is horrifying. But wouldn't such an attack be expensive? Especially if you have to rent servers to conduct the attack?

[Snugglebutt]

Most likely some butthurt hardcore elitist doing it due to nerfs to second coil. given the timing of the DDoS and the incoming and subsequent nerfing of the coil, that is where I place my bet.

[Tiggy]

That is horrifying. But wouldn't such an attack be expensive? Especially if you have to rent servers to conduct the attack?

You don't rent servers to do something illegal. That's how you get arrested. What they do is bank on the hundreds thousands internet users who don't update their software properly. They spread a virus around that turns those machines into zombies for the botnet. Normally without the owners being aware. Then those servers sit until the owner the net sends out a target up. The only real investment is time.

Most likely some butthurt hardcore elitist doing it due to nerfs to second coil. given the timing of the DDoS and the incoming and subsequent nerfing of the coil, that is where I place my bet.

Come on man. Baseless assumptions like this only serve to propagate prejudices.

[Hayward]

I've been suspecting these RMT companies in China or Eastern Europe have their fingerprints all over this. SE coming down on their racket is bound to elicit a reaction like this.