EVE Online Endures Downtime Due to Breached Security

Gamasutra is reporting that a serious security breach caused the closure of EVE Online this past weekend. A previously-unnoticed anomaly in a database prompted CCP, makers of the game, to close down the game world and their website while the issue was examined. The flaw was rectified, and service restored the same day. No credit card or billing information was exposed in the breach. "Explained [CCP chief of operations Jón Hörðdal], 'What we discovered was an indication that one of our databases was being accessed through a security breach. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation.' Hörðdal said that the taskforce concluded that going completely dark so that an exhaustive scan could be performed was the best course of action. 'While some may feel that such a drastic reaction was not warranted, it is always our approach to err on the side of caution in order to protect the players,' he said."

Comments

The most amusing thing about this story

[Silverlancer]

The most amusing thing about this story wasn't the story itself, but the rumors. Because the main forums run off the same database server as the game (a WTF in itself!), the developers were unable to post any information except through unofficial chat/IRC/etc, resulting in a number of rumors being spread. The most popular rumor was that a rollback would be necessary due to some sort of cheating, with the numbers flying around going up to that of a 6 week rollback. Of course, this made players go nuts, and probably gave a good laugh to those who made up the rumors. Most of all, it shows how important communication with customers is.

Re:The most amusing thing about this story

[anthonyclark]

The EVE devs remind me of many open source dev groups; really great coders, fun guys but terrible at the subtleties of customer service.

Yes, the fact that their forums and web servers all point at the same database as the game itself is astonishing. They've certainly made some weird design decisions through the years, although we're certainly not aware of all the factors that influence those decisions. Why on earth they didn't have a static web server page up within seconds of the downtime is really quite sad.

I was on the irc channels and watched the rumours fly around, it was all the work of a bunch of /b/ style folks who enjoyed trolling and watching the rollback rumours fly. Why anyone fell for it is beyond me to explain. (apart from "folks are dumb")

But the amazing accomplishments of the eve team shouldn't go unnoticed. A single game world means that people actually gain fame across the entire game, not just their little sharded server. Being able to sell some guy a battleship that then gets used in a pivotal battle involving 100s or 1000s of players is just jaw droppingly cool, in my opinion. The player driven economy, complete with scams, piracy, corporate wars and all, have kept me enthralled and entertained. (zealot mode, deactivated)