Online gaming is everywhere, and it’s harder to find a game that has no online capabilities.
With online capabilities comes online problems. While internet trolls can be verbally battled, ignored, or reported, hackers are a class of problems that can’t be solved so easily.
DDoSing is one of many techniques used to slow, disconnect, or otherwise harass online gamers. Here are a few DDoS details, along with ways to prevent hackers from having their way with your digital domination.
What Is DDoS?
DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. It’s a way to slow down or completely stop a service by attacking it with a massive amount of information.
Like anything else that can be filled to capacity, overloading a system results in poor performance. A DDoS attack essentially stuffs its target–or systems related to the target–with so much information that it can’t function on the network.
Think about downloading and uploading with a home computer. If someone else is downloading (receiving) or uploading (sending) a lot of information at once – like torrenting games or other massive downloads–everything else on the network is slower.
During a DoS, the attack target is essentially forced to download a lot of bad data. In the most common DDoS attacks, HTTP requests are sent because they’re relatively low-impact for the sender and a heavier load for the receiver.
The distributed part of distributed denial of service comes from the number of systems attacking the target. Modern DDoS attacks use botnets that are essentially infected computers that can all send data to the target.
This means multiple, mostly unrelated devices–only related in the fact that they’re infected–will all flood the target with bad data.
For gamers, it means either losing access to a game, the game website (if account actions such as reserving names are happening), or even your home or business connection.
Why Would Someone DDoS a Gamer?
The major reasons to DDoS a gamer range from petty antagonism to trolling to professional-level cheating.
DDoS attacks in general are often targeted against major business and organizations. For gamers, it’s often a specific game server, web service, or their home connection that is being flooded.
When it comes to professional-level cheating, your opponent could be hiring someone to disrupt your connection. Disconnecting–or simply slowing–your connection will give your opponent an upper hand.
While full disconnects are suspicion, sudden spikes of slow connectivity (lag) can cause a split second of delay that reduces your performance. While some gamers actively take advantage of lag, that’s harder when it’s unexpected.
Professionals aren’t the only gamers who deal with targeted DDoS attacks. Anything from a petty argument to losing repeatedly can lead actual hackers or people who buy DDoS services to start an attack.
DDoS Prevention Options
If you’ve been the target of a DDoS before or want to prevent attacks in general, the best practice is to be as close to invisible online.
For online gamers, being visible is a part of the job. Connecting to the game servers is an act of being present and visible to something, and there are ways of seeing when and where a person is connecting.
The easiest way to be less visible is to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN). A VPN is like a tunnel or sleeve for your connection that hides your traffic from prying eyes.
To servers and most people able to view connections easily, your connection and data will look like something entirely different from your actual connection. The network location and even the Internet Service Provider (ISP) can be unrelated to your actual login area.
There are other benefits to VPN use outside of simple shielding. Many VPNs offer a cornucopia of connections to choose from. You can manually select your connection location, and many VPN services have anti-DDoS techniques to help you evade.
While some services explicitly block the use of VPNs, the gaming community and its developers are well aware of the need. Games often have no issue with VPNs, and VPN services that advertise gamer-friendly features are available.
Not all VPN services are the same. Some are designed to be bare-bones methods of sneaking around a banned Internet Protocol (IP) address or blocked content.
If you’re a gamer who plays region-blocked games, VPNs can help you. Korean and Japanese online games sometimes block outside users from connecting to either keep their overseas funds in order or keep culturally-similar gamers together.
If you want to get access to foreign games before they release in your country, VPNs are for you. If you need to evade DDoS attacks, VPNs are here to help. Contact a VPN expert to discuss private networking options today.
