Over the last week the newly launched PvP sandbox Albion Online has been dealing with a series of coordinated DDoS attacks, which the devs say was “most likely in response to [SI’s] recent actions against gold sellers to coerce [SI] to not interfere with their illegal business.” against their servers. On Saturday, the situation got even more complicated and nightmarish. The devs posted a second update detailing more attacks that had occurred over the weekend, as well as a blackmail attempt allegedly made in consort with the DDoS attacks.
“It goes without saying that we will never give in to them. As every black mailer will know, it’s the worst thing you could ever do. Of course, every blackmail attempt and DDOS attack is being reported to the relevant law enforcement agencies, too, though realistically the chance to catch somebody is quite slim. Having said that, sometimes it does happen, and if it does, we will pursue every case to the fullest extend possible, no matter where the offender is based – above activities are a crime in every jurisdiction in the world and it’s always possible to find a local law firm to represent you.”
The anti-gold-seller measures, by the way, involve targeting goldsellers’ funding sources and reporting fraudsters to credit card companies. “We are not trying to go after the gold sellers directly, as that usually won’t work, but rather shut down their means of getting paid and we are eager to find out how successful this will be,”
The servers are currently back up; hopefully, they stay up. Players are getting more and more anxious about the downtime.
Below you’ll find the full second update:
Hello everyone,
we just wanted to inform you that the problems which occured yesterday were because of a DDOS attack. We also received a ransom demand from the attackers. There is a huge probability that these attacks might continue. We are actually getting reports of increased traffic from our hoster (UTC 12:25).
We will keep you updated about the situation.
Update: (UTC: 13:43)
There is currently a DDOS going on which will cause login problems and disconnects. We are sorry for the iconvenience caused.Update (UTC 17:42):
There is another attack happening! We would recommend you not to play PVP or expeditions since it is possible that you experience Disconnects during that time.
We expect the attack to last at least an hour! Maybe longer.Update (UTC 19:20):
The DDOS attack continues as it seems, as before we can not guarantee for anything you may experience discconects.Update (UTC 21:00):
A new DDOS attack is happening right now.Update (UTC 22:43):
The servers are under another DDOS attack. We’re on it.Update: (UTC: 02:30 w/ issues starting at UTC: 00:42)
Again DDOS keeps interrupting our services. We initiated a restart and we are on it.Update: (UTC: 03:23)
After some changes and another restart the servers are back up again.Kind regards,
StefanPS.: Since so many people msged me what the ransom is. Its simply money and not someone being unbanned.
