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Hacking Group 'OurMine' Claims Credit For Attack On Pokemon Go Servers (independent.co.uk)

Posted by BeauHD on from the viral-video-games dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A group of hackers known as OurMine have attacked Pokemon Go's login servers, making it all but impossible for players to get online. The group says they hacked the game in an effort for the game to be more stable. They want to show the developers behind Pokemon Go that the app can and should be made more secure. Prior to the hack, the servers have been shaky as interest in the game has spiked. But over the weekend, users faced the most extreme connectivity issues yet. "No one will be able to play this game till Pokemon Go contact us on our website to teach them how to protect it!" the group wrote on its website. A different hacking group, which claimed to be part of OurMine, said that the latest attack had been launched after the huge outage caused by a group called Poodlecorp, on Saturday. "The group makes money from charging for vulnerability assessment, where hackers attempt to break into corporate networks to check how safe they are," reports The Independent. A representative said via Twitter that the group wasn't requesting money from those behind Pokemon Go, and that OurMine "just don't want other hackers [to] attack their servers." It should come as no surprise to see that the servers have been having trouble keeping up with demand as Pokemon Go has become the biggest mobile game in U.S. history after launching just about two weeks ago.

6 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Arrogance by Calydor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The script kiddies know how to bring things down in, perhaps, ten of a hundred different ways. The remaining ninety are known by the actual experts with jobs.

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    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  2. Fancy words by PraiseBob · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The group makes money from charging for vulnerability assessment,

    You say potato, I say extortion... This is simply a new generation of organized crime demanding "protection money", to keep a business safe.

  3. No issues here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I played all weekend and didn't have any problems.

    Also, since when is DDoSing considered "hacking" ?

    Oh, right, never.

  4. Toldja! by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...Team Rocket is real

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    Table-ized A.I.
    1. Re:Toldja! by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wannabe evil, mostly annoying as fuck, not really a threat and generally considered comic relief...

      You're onto something here, I'd say.

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      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  5. never attribute to malice by nimbius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    that which can be more effectively explained by stupidity. Skiddies will always claim victory for instability. Niantic likely supports GO authentication servers in shared hosting/colocation outsourced datacenters. Its far more likely Niantic is either under-resourcing their Pokemon infrastructure to control costs for a largely free game, or that their infrastructure scales poorly with the particular code used to run pokemon GO. its also possibly that hasty configurations like NAT instead of DSR or a lack of IPv6 infrastructure could be bottle-necking large amounts of authentication traffic, or if it truly is a DDoS then Niantic is just choosing to ignore it rather than escalate to things like prolexic or hiring more network staff to address the problem.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.