Hackers apparently target matches after placing bets on them

Apr 16, 2013 11:27 GMT  ·  By

G-1, a competitive eSports league from China specializing in Dota 2, has confirmed that it's stopping all further matches due to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that have been directed at either participants in the league or actual officials.

Dota 2 is still in closed beta but this hasn't stopped many thriving online eSports leagues from dedicating themselves to the popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena experience.

Sadly, it seems that hackers have started interfering with the matches in one of the biggest competitive Dota 2 leagues out there, G-1 from China.

Apparently, according to a statement translated by Reddit, the organizer behind the eSports league, 17173, has decided to suspend the matches that were set to happen in the following days, as hackers have sent a number of DDoS attacks against different players during the actual matches.

"Over the past few days, the G-1 Western Qualifiers has been the subject of DDoS attacks from unknown sources, which has caused players to continuously disconnect and made it impossible to carry out the competition. In light of the current situation, 17173 has decided to postpone the Western Qualifiers while waiting for a technical solution, possibly from Valve."

PCGamesN notes that the attacks have been attributed to a 4Chan member who apparently decided to target the match between Team Dignitas and QPAD Red Pandas. According to a presumed statement, the hacker interfered with the patch because he had a big bet on the QPAD Red Pandas.

The match, however, was abandoned until further notice because both members of Team Dignitas and the commentator, Ayesee, were targeted and couldn't take part in the full competition.

As of yet, it's unclear just how the hackers manage to get the IP addresses of the players although some exploits concerning Skype or Steam have been rumored.

Dota 2 developer Valve hasn't commented on this pretty big controversy.