Distributed Denial Of Service (DDoS) is infecting online businesses and their customers as a rodent infestation. It moves by charging on offline websites through overwhelming domains with intensive traffic flows posing a big threat to business of all types. Going offline because of the DDoS attacks the websites becomes a liability where it impacts revenue, customer interactions and basic ease of access.
This is not limited to online businesses. We all know the prospects of online gaming which has become a huge phenomenon in the online world. It’s no longer a game, it’s a profession. But everything online is becoming prey to DDoS attacks. Online gaming is part of it, and some say DDoS attacks are the biggest nemesis for online gamers.
Let’s see how accurate it is.
Online Gamers: DDoS Trends In the Gaming Industry
Recently DDoS attacks have taken the gaming industry by a considerable margin, and these attacks are primarily aimed at the network protection because most of the gaming servers do not work on HTTP, neither do they support it. They explode the server with exponential requests which slows down to the point that the connection breaks. For a gamer, this is not a good news, and online gaming has been disturbed with these DDoS attacks. Players are unable to log in and save their data, and as a consequence, the entire storage is wiped out.
DDoS Attacks Gaming Servers – Why?
A hacking group named ‘Lizard Squad’ takes time to gain attention of all the possible targets online that could be attacked. The online gaming has what is called a “disruption amplification” influence which makes them fancy targets for DDoS attacks. There are two possibilities why online gaming becomes the easy target for DDoS attacks.
- Point of Failure of Gamers: Online gaming blossomed because of the mass scale response of the online gamers who are willing to play online games with no restrictions or hesitation whatsoever; which is why online gaming became an online model. This particularly increased the chances of online connectivity growing the need for multiplayer and single player options. The constant demand for the connectivity increases the chances of a security concern that creates single-point-of-failure – SPOF. Because of the SPOF, the DDoS attacks move towards the gaming platform and breaks loose on the gaming profiles and servers.
- Nature of Gaming leads to frustration: DDoS attack perpetrators take advantage of the gaming persona and attachment that online gamers have towards it; whether a deep connection for a level or a connection towards a specific character. Gaming is a religion to many, and any interruption in the game may lead to chaos. Attackers take advantage of this experience and twist it for the worst that triggers an outbreak. In both the cases, the attackers know how to instigate fire in the form of DDoS attacks.
Gaming Networks Are Exposed to DDoS Attacks
Considering the demand for online gaming; these games are sensitive when it comes to latency, making them perfect targets for DDoS attacks. These flaws make DDoS attacks able to exploit online gamers.
Custom Protocols
Gaming platforms are heavily dependent on custom network protocols built with precision performance a big factor. For a machine such as a game, it is not easy for it to distinguish between a player and a DDoS bot because there is very little information provided by the online gamers and taken by the game’s developer to separate them.
General Traffic Increases Susceptibility
While gaming online, traffic periods can be recorded and predicted with a simple algorithm. Developers announce new game releases in advance such as ‘Pub G’ and the gamer traffic follows by. Seasonal traffic rises by the end of the year holidays or in national holidays. Without the attack of DDoS, online gamers still complain about the slow bandwidths and latency because of the traffic. While the game is functioning at full capacity on slow servers, there is no best time to launch a DDoS attack that ultimately leads to online gamers suffering.
Offline Status Not Required
It’s common to understand that shutting a server will not kill it. Games which inhibit MMO competitive action depend on instant responses in real time and player interaction is essential. The major functionality works in the absence of latency which is an instigator to the worse gaming experience. The time between sending a command and making it happen takes way too long.
While you are reading this, there is a likely chance your next door neighbor could be the next possible DDoS target, and you will get to know because of the abnormal behavior the game will start to produce. We can say with a heavy heart that DDoS attacks are the biggest nemesis for online gamers and comes by as a plague that stays.
Online gamers are advised to take extreme precaution while playing online games and adopt new strategy; to use a VPN to boost online gaming experience. It will surely keep your identity hidden while playing online and make sure DDoS attacks do not break the military grade encryption.
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