Threat Management, Network Security, Network Security

Final Fantasy network recovers after losing health points to DDoS attack

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The network hosting the role-playing video game Final Fantasy XIV experienced significant disruptions for three hours yesterday as the result of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.

A Feb. 5 posting on developer Square Enix's online forum informed players that the company was able to fully restore the network and also reinforced its anti-DDoS defensive measures following the incident, which caused technical difficulties between 6:49 a.m. and 9:40 a.m. Eastern Time that day.

Earlier that same day, Square Enix acknowledged that gamers could be experiencing disconnections from and difficulties logging in to JP data center Worlds, as well as difficulties accessing, sending and receiving data from JP data centers.

In June 2017, Final Fantasy XIV was notably impacted by a multi-day DDoS attack campaign targeting the game's North American data center.

“Online gaming companies are constantly under the barrage of DDoS attacks; sometimes there are dozens of attacks per day that range in size and scale,” said Stephanie Weagle, vice president of DDoS protection and mitigation company Corero Network Security. “Regardless of the motivation, or techniques used to execute the attacks, these cyber events lead to downtime, latency and availability issues... Any service downtime equates to drop-in visitors and a corresponding loss of revenue.”

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Bradley Barth

As director of multimedia content strategy at CyberRisk Alliance, Bradley Barth develops content for online conferences, webcasts, podcasts video/multimedia projects — often serving as moderator or host. For nearly six years, he wrote and reported for SC Media as deputy editor and, before that, senior reporter. He was previously a program executive with the tech-focused PR firm Voxus. Past journalistic experience includes stints as business editor at Executive Technology, a staff writer at New York Sportscene and a freelance journalist covering travel and entertainment. In his spare time, Bradley also writes screenplays.

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