This is not good message for all Pokemon Go trainers. Unfortunately, but about 2 hours ago all Pokemon Go servers stopped working. Even one group, called PoodleCorp has claimed responsibility for the attack. However, Niantic claims that the issue is caused by huge interest of players, because Pokemon Go has been released today officially in several new European countries.
What is the truth? It is hard to decide, but I am strongly convinced that the truth lies in the middle. Interest in the game exceeded all expectations, including the most positive scenario supposed by Niantic company.
Pokemon Go is more popular than Twitter and Tinder.
In my opinion, this overwhelming popularity causes a lot of issues with connectivity to Niantic servers. It could also attract the attention of some “hackers”. This is not a huge problem to perform DDoS attack on so popular and new service. Of course, Niantic has experience in AR (Augmented Reality) mobile games, but Pokemons are cultural icon.
What is DDoS attack?
Do you remember problems with PlayStation Network and Xbox Live services during the last Christmas? These service access issues were caused by DDoS attack. How does it work? This is simply the emulation of parallel access tries from thousands and even millions different hosts (i.e. infected computers) to the single server or group of servers. It is really hard to defend against this kind of attack, because the service provider (e.g. Niantic) has to distinguish the traffic generated by “hackers” than the real Pokemon Go players data.
