Pokemon GO Canada: Servers down, Two groups claim responsibility for DDOS attack

Players suffer massive weekend outages as PoodleCorp claim responsibility for DDoS attack.

A hacking group called PoodleCorp has claimed responsibility for the massive Pokemon Go outages over the weekend.

The popular augmented reality game Pokémon Go has created a craze across the world, but on Saturday 16 July users took to social media to complain of being unable to access the game. Other users, meanwhile, complained of the game freezing.

PoodleCorp took to Twitter claiming responsibility, while also promising a larger scale attack in the near future. The PoodleCorp twitter account, commenting on the attack, stated: “Just was a lil test, we will do something on a larger scale soon.”

Related: Pokemon Go Canada: App is now officially available – How to Install and Play

The online gaming industry has always been somewhat of a honey pot attracting hackers, with notable past attacks seen on the PS4 and Xbox live networks by the Lizard Squad hacking group. Stephanie Weagle, Senior Director at Corero Network Security, said:

“The online gaming industry is highly susceptible to DDoS attacks due to the competitive nature of the games themselves, monetary gains or the notion that organized cyber crime syndicates can grab headlines with their successful attacks.

“DDoS attack tools are easily procured and at low cost allowing any creative attacker the ability to cause service disruptions at a click of a mouse.

“Traditional security infrastructure, or legacy DDoS mitigation solutions are not sufficient to handle the flood of DDoS attacks, especially since attackers have become more savvy in their techniques; launching low-level, multi-vector attacks that evade scrubbing solutions. In-line, automated DDoS mitigation is the only effective defense in the world of online gaming.”

Agencies/Canadajournal