Are DDOS attacks something we'll just have to get used to?

[Aeluron Lightsong]

There's no really easy solution to solving DDOS. I'm sure there are ways to be prepared for them but it's not necessarily Blizzard's fault.

[Lochton]

Sadly, it isn't that easy to fight it..

[Quibble]

Let's be real I barely know what it is even now

So.. why did you not take 5min and look up what a DDoS attack was, instead of just going to mmo-champion to make a pretty stupid thread, based on lack of knowlegde about the subject?

[MoanaLisa]

I find it hard to believe that there's literally no way to find the source or stop a DDOS attack. Blizzard doesn't seem to be making any effort to change what they're doing since it has become an every day occurrence.

Then you don't understand a couple of things:

• The distributed nature of DDOS attacks through remotely controlled bot networks. This makes it a near impossibility to trace down any "source". You have 15,000 PC's making attacks due to malware that has secretly been installed on the PC by careless users. Who or whatever is controlling that network of bots doesn't need to do much of anything except to tell them once to "go". How do you find the source in that case?
• That DDOS attacks are not made against Blizzard's servers directly but against the IP nodes that are maintained by ISP's and network providers upstream from those servers. This is actually stated clearly in one of the tweets you posted if you had bothered to read and understand it. If I want to stop you from going anywhere, I don't have to do anything to you directly. I can just block the roads to the point where you can't leave.

There's more to it than just that but it's not up to Blizzard to change what they are doing. It's up to Blizzard to convince their ISP's to manage these attacks better. The responsibility for dealing with this most times is with the owner of network resources that are the actual target of the attack. Very often, that's not Blizzard.

The more you know....

[Airlick]

The DDoSers will get bored eventually.

[Grandork]

The DDoSers will get bored eventually.

Hard to get bored when so many nerds rage about it.

[Stop Pretending]

Not really, no.

Actually, yes. It's actually been happening for several years.

[Alydael]

Everything in a business is a money issue (yes, yes, I know this is shocking to some). Despite what some posters I have read seem to believe, Blizz is not making this game out of "the goodness of their little hearts"). Could they stop the DDOS attack? Probably, but it would take: money, time and resources. Since the DDOS attacks are probably not costing them much (if anything at all), it just really doesn't make sense to spend money to stop them.

If this line of reasoning keeps up we will eventually see Blizzard say: "do you want us to stop the DDOS attack, or do you want the new raid tier- there are only so many hours in a day you know." Don't hate on Blizz for the DDOS attacks, blame the Jr. keyboard ninja club that is actually doing the attacks.

[KaziOfTheSkies]

Let's be real I barely know what it is even now

Lets put it this way....
Imagine me Walking up to you asking what time it is.
Now imagine 10000 people Walking up to you asking what time it is. Over and over and over and over and over again.
Thats a (simplified) DDos attack.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Everything in a business is a money issue (yes, yes, I know this is shocking to some). Despite what some posters I have read seem to believe, Blizz is not making this game out of "the goodness of their little hearts"). Could they stop the DDOS attack? Probably, but it would take: money, time and resources. Since the DDOS attacks are probably not costing them much (if anything at all), it just really doesn't make sense to spend money to stop them.

If this line of reasoning keeps up we will eventually see Blizzard say: "do you want us to stop the DDOS attack, or do you want the new raid tier- there are only so many hours in a day you know." Don't hate on Blizz for the DDOS attacks, blame the Jr. keyboard ninja club that is actually doing the attacks.

That's not really the reason they don't do much though, it's just hard to prevent a DDOS.

[Grandork]

Everything in a business is a money issue (yes, yes, I know this is shocking to some). Despite what some posters I have read seem to believe, Blizz is not making this game out of "the goodness of their little hearts"). Could they stop the DDOS attack? Probably, but it would take: money, time and resources. Since the DDOS attacks are probably not costing them much (if anything at all), it just really doesn't make sense to spend money to stop them.

If this line of reasoning keeps up we will eventually see Blizzard say: "do you want us to stop the DDOS attack, or do you want the new raid tier- there are only so many hours in a day you know." Don't hate on Blizz for the DDOS attacks, blame the Jr. keyboard ninja club that is actually doing the attacks.

This is wrong on so many levels that it's funny. It's literally, and I mean literally, impossible for Blizzard to stop the DDoS, unless they bought out every single ISP.

[vqkatsuko]

Man so many people in this thread show they fundamentally have no clue what a DDOS attack is.

[Dundebuns]

Lets put it this way....
Imagine me Walking up to you asking what time it is.
Now imagine 10000 people Walking up to you asking what time it is. Over and over and over and over and over again.
Thats a (simplified) DDos attack.

Don't forget, you're not allowed to ignore them, and you have to answer every single one of them as quickly as possible.

[Deleted]

I find it hard to believe that there's literally no way to find the source or stop a DDOS attack. Blizzard doesn't seem to be making any effort to change what they're doing since it has become an every day occurrence.

That's the magic of Distributed Denial of Service attacks.
One source controlling million of zombies. How do you figure out who is a zombie, and how do you trace the zombie back to the C2 (Command and Control server)?
That is what law enforcement and the blue team (hackers who hack for good) has to deal with. And with botnets being cheaper than ever, how do you find the customers of botnets, and how do you find the C2? How do you even find anything at all, apart from dumb zombies?

No, it is not easy. No, there is literally nothing Blizzard can do when it's their Internet Service Providers who are getting DDOS'd. That is up to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint or whatever ISPs Blizzard use.
And of course they have multiple ISP's per datacenter - that is standard practice for any large corporation with a Service Level Agreement to their customers. When they say (Providers), it's likely multiple or all of their providers and not just one.
They are completely helpless. Being a network engineer in these times is just depressing - you cannot defend yourself against these attacks.

[Alydael]

That's not really the reason they don't do much though, it's just hard to prevent a DDOS.

Blizzard made over a billion dollars last year alone, I am certain if they really wanted to- they could stop it.

- - - Updated - - -

This is wrong on so many levels that it's funny. It's literally, and I mean literally, impossible for Blizzard to stop the DDoS, unless they bought out every single ISP.

If you say so, I guess. I worked at a law firm a few years ago and their tech support team used to stop them all the time. I guess they were magicians are something since you assure me that it can not be done.

[Grandork]

Blizzard made over a billion dollars last year alone, I am certain if they really wanted to- they could stop it.

- - - Updated - - -



If you say so, I guess. I worked at a law firm a few years ago and their tech support team used to stop them all the time. I guess they were magicians are something since you assure me that it can not be done.

Please go away, you have no idea what you are talking about.

[MrFiddleswitch]

Not much that can be done - but they'll eventually get bored when another game or expack launches and move to DDoS it instead. Then they'll be back with 7.1, and fade again, back with 7.2, etc.

They're bored in their mom's basement - have to get their kicks somewhere.

[vqkatsuko]

Blizzard made over a billion dollars last year alone, I am certain if they really wanted to- they could stop it.

- - - Updated - - -



If you say so, I guess. I worked at a law firm a few years ago and their tech support team used to stop them all the time. I guess they were magicians are something since you assure me that it can not be done.

the throughputs of the DDOS that Blizzard sees on their networks, and isp, and regional routers, are astronomical. Yes if it was the same magnitude as some random law firm with a tech support team, then sure, Blizzard could probably stop it. But using "Cloudflare" or some other "DDOS" protection service is not going to stop this from happening to Blizzard. Even if they did "Stop" the DDOS's from happening they would just target Blizzard's regional WANs and then just take of the whole system for the area. Like someone else said unless Blizzard owns the Data connections themselves, there is nothing to stop a DDOS attack after it becomes big enough in throughput.

As an aside, blizzard's "normal" traffic that they see is probably 10000000x more then said law firm. Just a heads up.

[Mirishka]

It's just a marketing gimmick, this way they don't have to announce a subscriber count, this just gets interpreted by mainstream media as "that old game WoW is still so popular, hackers are attacking it".

I hope you aren't seriously this dumb.

[Beloren]

...it takes less to understand what a DDoS is than to make a post on MMO Champion.

haha. you should explain more to folks.

Want DDOS' to stop? ask your hacker friends to do something about it.

for some reason every time I see it I think about either some anti-globalist or Islamic person hating on western or modern society that wants to mess it all upthat's doing this. But who knows, it could be rival game company, could not be directed at blizzard specifically but just a result of new hacker attempts to hack ISPs, especially the big ones in the UK - like Virgin, Talktalk, BT, SKY

etc, it's warfare out there atm, and as we do have some Warcraft players that are very good hackers, they should look into it.

Anyway, if it's achieving much greater good in society or stopping some evil, i'm sure we can whether the annoyance, but if it is utterly clandestine, well, maybe we should act?