Cyber Incident Victim: Activision Blizzard
Date:
Mar 2020
Location:
United States of America
Summary
Blizzard Entertainment experienced a massive DDoS attack disrupting global game services, causing significant latency and connection problems. The company acknowledged the attack, which affected authentication servers leading to failed or slow login attempts, with ongoing issues reported across multiple regions including the United States, China, and several European and Middle Eastern countries. Concurrently, EA Sports faced unrelated lagging and connectivity problems during the same period, though the cause remained unconfirmed. The attack persisted intermittently, later impacting Battle.net services as well.
| CIA Posture | Motives | Tactics, Techniques & Procedures |
|---|---|---|
| Available to members | 1 motive | 1 technique |
| Threat Actors | Type | Location |
|---|---|---|
| 0 actors | Available to members | Available to members |
Description
On March 18, 2020, Blizzard Entertainment experienced a widespread service disruption caused by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack targeting its network providers. The attack significantly degraded connectivity and increased latency for users attempting to access Blizzard’s games globally. Blizzard’s customer support team publicly acknowledged the incident via Twitter, confirming they were actively monitoring the attack’s impact on game servers and login systems. Concurrently, the company reported technical issues affecting its authentication servers, which led to failed or delayed login attempts for players. Initial outage reports from Down Detector indicated concentrated disruptions across multiple regions, including the United States, Israel, Bahrain, Iraq, China, Singapore, Malaysia, and Denmark. No immediate claim of responsibility or attacker motive was disclosed in available reports.
The disruption occurred during a period of increased online activity due to COVID-19-related work-from-home advisories, though the article did not explicitly link the attack to this context. Blizzard provided no further updates on the March 18 attack’s resolution, but on March 20, 2020, the company reported a subsequent DDoS attack affecting its Battle.net platform, reiterating similar latency and connection issues. Electronic Arts’ EA Sports division simultaneously faced unrelated global service outages characterized by player reports of lagging and connectivity problems, though the cause remained unconfirmed. Blizzard’s documented response actions were limited to public acknowledgments of the attacks via Twitter and ongoing monitoring of network impacts, with no disclosed containment measures or technical counteractions. Service restoration timelines and final operational statuses were not provided in the available source material.