Square Enix: ‘Final Fantasy XIV’ Is Being Hit By DDoS Attacks

Distributed-denial of service (DDoS) attacks have been targeting Final Fantasy XIV. Square Enix said that a “third party” has conducted intermittent attacks on the MMORPG’s North American data center since June, and that the attacks recently shifted focus to its internet service providers (ISPs).

The news comes shortly after Square Enix released Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, which brought new jobs, raids, dungeons, and other additions to the game. Stormblood also seemed to have brought renewed interest from the Final Fantasy XIV player base–Square Enix had to implement a new system to alleviate the game’s drawn-out login queues in June because many players had to wait a dreadfully long time to start playing the game.

Now it seems like Square Enix was combating another issue at the same time. The company said today that it has been “implementing defensive measures” at its facilities, which managed to “keep the impact to services at a minimum.” But the attackers have changed tack, Square Enix said:

However, since July the attacks have shifted away from the FINAL FANTASY XIV game servers and the target has changed to focus on the upper-tier internet service providers (ISPs) that are required to connect to the data center. These attacks to the upper-tier ISP network are causing lapses in communication to the game servers, giving rise to instant disconnects during logins.

The company said it’s been working with its ISPs to make sure they can mitigate the effects of these DDoS attacks. Square Enix said these defenses have proven effective so far, but it cautioned that the attacks could occur again. It’s not clear why Final Fantasy XIV has been targeted by such attacks–Square Enix didn’t say who was conducting them or what their motivation might be. All it’s said is that these attacks are a problem.

Not that DDoS attacks are uncommon. In fact, they’ve become an increasingly vexing problem for many companies. At least part of the issue lies with the rise of insecure Internet of Things (IoT) devices, as we saw last year when a DDoS attack on the Dyn domain name service (DNS) provider took down sites like Twitter, Spotify, and Reddit, among others. It’s not surprising for an MMORPG to be targeted by the same type of attack.