Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/09/02/china_gamers_dos_spat/
Four arrested in China over net-paralysing gaming spat
DDoS kerfuffle between rivals causes web chaos
Posted in Security, 2nd September 2009 13:09 GMT
Chinese police have arrested four gamers who allegedly launched denial of service attacks that disrupted internet communications across the country back in May.
The group allegedly ran a denial-of-service attack against a rival online gaming group. The DNS servers of DNSPod, a firm that provides services to gaming sites, were targeted in the attack, which ballooned to cause huge collateral damage.
Surfers across six different Chinese provinces reported problems surfing at the height of the attack, including slow access speeds and finding some sites impossible to reach.
Police in the southern Chinese city of Foshan, Guangdong province, allege that a 23 year-old called Bing - who ran a set of "private servers" that offered online games - was behind the attacks. Rival operators often targeted his systems with denial of service attacks. Bing allegedly responded by teaming up with business associates to rent a botnet and launch a denial of service attack in response, to negligible effect.
The associates then hired a technician in Zhejiang province to design an attack tool, which was allegedly used to disastrous effect against DNSPod.
IDG has more on the arrests and the original attacks here. ®