Ubisoft to send out cease & desist requests to DDoS-for-hire services

September 19, 2019 TH Author

Image: Ubisoft // Composition: ZDNet

Ubisoft plans to send cease & desist legal letters to operators of DDoS-for-hire services, also known as DDoS booters or DDoS stressors.

The company said it plans on making this step as part of a global action plan to curb DDoS attacks aimed at Rainbox Six Siege multiplayer servers.

DDoS attacks have pummeled Rainbox Six Siege servers

The French video game company has been under a wave of DDoS attacks ever since last week when it launched the Operation Ember Rise update for the Rainbow Six Siege game.

Along with the update, Ubisoft also performed a reset of multiplayer rankings. Following the reset, multiple players are suspected to have started launching DDoS attacks at the company’s servers.

The cheating players have been using the DDoS attacks to trigger server lag and slow down matches. The goal was to annoy opponents, who in many cases would end up disconnecting and receiving a penalty for leaving the match, allowing the player who launched the DDoS attack to gain rank points undeserved.

The DDoS attacks have been widespread as several players got wind of the trick and started renting DDoS firepower from online DDoS for-hire sites.

Because Ubisoft hosts three Rainbox Six Siege matches per server, one attacker usually ends up ruining up to multiple matches at a time, impacting far more players than their direct opponents.

The DDoS wave hasn’t gone unnoticed, and a quick YouTube search returns countless videos from complaining players and video game streamers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

Legal route is highly unlikely to succeed

If Ubisoft’s plan to use cease & desist letters will work is up for debate. After all, DDoS booters provide illegal services. It’s not like they have an incentive to follow the law. Everything these services provide is criminal in nature.

Ubisoft’s other DDoS mitigation measures will most likely play a more significant role in reducing the attacks’ impact on its platform.

These additional solutions include hosting each Rainbox Six Siege match on a separate server, banning players believed to be behind the attacks, and removing the penalty for disconnecting from matches where DDoS attacks have been observed.

Additional measures are also being developed together with Microsoft Azure’s team, Ubisoft said; however, these will take some time to complete and have no rollout deadline.