Cyberattack On Minecraft Tournament Cripples A Small European Country's Internet Services

A recent Minecraft tournament based upon the Netflix smash hit "Squid Games" took out Andorra’s internet service for hours on end, dropping the country’s internet connectivity to under 50%.

What Happened: The small landlocked (between France and Spain) European country’s sole and state-owned internet service provider was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that overwhelmed internet services, causing many participants and residents of Andorra to lose connectivity during the tournament.

NetBlocks, an internet-freedom monitoring company, said the attacks and the tournament were linked in a tweet.

� Confirmed: Internet disruption registered on #Andorra Telecom (AS6752) on Saturday evening; the incident is attributed by the state telco to a DDoS attack targeting the high-stakes #SquidCraftGames Minecraft Twitch competition, resulting in the elimination of Team Andorrapic.twitter.com/RCsJu2DYpH

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) January 23, 2022

The attack hit on Jan. 19 as the tournament kicked off. The event was hosted by Spanish streamers Rubius and Auronplay in “Squidcraft Games” in a six-day ongoing Minecraft-style tournament created by the streamers based on the popular Netflix show.

Despite the attack, the Squidcraft tournament was the most-watched event in the history of the Twitch Rivals series, drawing millions of viewers throughout the trounament.

Also See: Minecraft Hits 1 Trillion Views On YouTube: How The Game Has Maintained Its User Base

Why It Matters: The attack was ongoing for 4 days and forced at least a dozen players located in Andorra to leave the tournament. Participants seem to think the players of Andorra were targeted by the DDoS attack from a for-hire DDoS service, as it was only ongoing for the duration of the tournament.

Some of the attacks went as high as 100 Gbps during short bursts, causing many others besides the gamers to lose internet including residential consumers, local businesses and government agencies.

Photo: Courtesy of Curtis Guy on Flickr.