After the attack from Lizard Squad against Destiny and Call of Duty servers, Incapsula points out to a worrisome trend

Sep 23, 2014 09:51 GMT  ·  By

Issues like the ones gamers went through over the weekend when Destiny and Call of Duty servers were hit with DDoS attack are likely to happen time and time again. In fact, not only will we see such attacks happen regularly, but we might even see a frequency spike.

“This trend is likely to continue for two main reasons: First, anyone can access ‘DDoS-as-service’ solutions today and generate mid-sized attacks for a less than $50. Second, the coverage of attacks is instantaneous and widespread. When all you need to be armed with is a PayPal account, instant Internet notoriety has never been easier,” said Igal Zeifman from security company Incapsula.

He notes that there has been an increase in gaming sites being hit by DDoS attacks for a wide range of motives, varying from angry gamers looking for revenge from getting kicked out of community for acting out, other gaming rivals, or virtual good exchanges. Zeifman categorizes such people as “outright extortionists” who know the cost of downtime and are making the most of it.

The security expert says that gaming site operators need to start putting up defenses against DDoS attacks because hoping they won’t get hit is not a sound strategy.

This wasn’t an isolated incident

Recently, Incapsula helped one of its clients weather out a heavy attack that lasted 38 days, during which the company’s scrubbing servers filtered out over 50 petabits of malicious traffic. Incapsula noticed at the time that the offenders switched between several targets, but they consistently targeted the websites of one Incapsula client – a video game company. The timing was perfect for the unnamed client since they had just signed up for the service.

“Clearly, the organization was the real target. Combined with the extreme determination of the attackers, one can assume that the DDoS attack was the result of a business feud. The goal was nothing short of a complete takedown of this online business,” Incapsula wrote at the time.

Over the weekend, a hacker group called Lizard Squad attacked servers dedicated to games Destiny and Call of Duty: Ghost. Players were booted from the servers in the middle of the game and an error message was displayed. Access was restricted for several hours, making players complain about the uptime and saying they’d leave and ask for their money back.

The PlayStation Network has been a favorite target for hackers in the past few months.