Recently, online video game portals have found themselves facing unprecedented numbers of malicious cyber-attacks. This development can partially be attributed to restrictions related to COVID-19 that may be driving some individuals to seek out less than wholesome, creative outlets.
Distributed-denial of service (DDoS) mitigation specialist, NexusGuard revealed in its third-quarter threat report that real-money online gambling and free-play/virtual currency online gaming operators are currently the two most popular DDoS targets in Q3. The report also showed that real-money operators, by comparison, are understandably dedicating a lot more resources to battling this scourge.
The NexusGuard report also included figures that indicate that online gambling accounted for 45.2% of all DDoS attacks in the three months ending September 30, with online gaming standing at 31.7%. In non-gaming sectors like business, government, education, and finance, the number of attacks recorded was significantly lower.
The report also reveals that the total number of attacks represents a dramatic increase as they have increased by 287% from Q3 2019. However, the number had fallen by 51.3% from Q2 when pandemic lockdown restrictions were at their strictest.
The report revealed that while online gambling operators are universally prepared to fight off DDoS attacks, online gaming operators seem to be largely vulnerable. The fact that online gaming platforms are “extremely sensitive to latency and availability issues,” they’ are often irresistible targets for DDoS attacks.
While some coordinated hackers use this method to hold platforms to ransom, the report indicates that a large number of ‘regular’ gamers are employing highly competitively priced DDOS-for-hire services to launch attacks at rival players. French gaming giant Ubisoft reported a dramatic increase in attacks in January that targeted its Rainbow Six Siege game. These were most likely precipitated by a recent reset of global player rankings with some players targeting their rivals and forcing them to disconnect so that the attacker can claim the win by default.
The online gambling industry has good reason for its overzealous approach to online security as “significantly more complex” attacks are Levelled at it, in comparison to online gaming. 41.5% of attacks on online gambling operations were multi-vector assaults, compared to a figure of 6.4% regarding online gaming attacks. Almost 73% of DDoS attacks in Q3 lasted 90 minutes or less; however, 1.25% exceeded 1200 minutes. One particularly severe attack lasted a total of 34,551 minutes.
The report named China as the major source of attacks in Q3, contributing almost 32%. Turkey had the similarly dubious distinction of being second place with a figure of 13.9% narrowly edging out the US, which contributed to 13.75% of the attacks. The rest of the top 10 list is made up exclusively of Asia-Pacific nations.
