A question for zos regarding all these issues..

jommerryrth

As i consider the complaints on the board, the question occurs to me: are these servers being hacked? If so are they being hacked often? It occurs to me that this might be so and we just arent being told about it. So i am asking for zos to be honest and tell us whether this is so or not. Thank you.

Soarora

“External traffic hitting our service” sounds like a ddos to me. Ddosing isn’t really hacking though.

Dokolus

Yeah I'm not sure what's even going on with their EU megaserver, but each time I log on, I'm able to play for around 10 mins or so and then I get booted back to the login screen, and I was absolutely fine playing the game 2 days ago when I'd just bought the latest expansion pack.

A friend of mine further in the UK is also having massive ping issues, and this ends up happening to me as well, after what happened the other day (with the assumed DDOS).

Really hoping they sort this all out during Monday maintenance, because I didn't come back from a 3yr break from ESO, to constantly get booted back to the login screen.

If I were them, and it turns out to be an actual DDOS, I'd just get the FBI involved, because people are paying for this game near constantly, and I've read up that we've been told we'd see the servers improve, and this honestly feels like the lowest point of online stability for an MMO I have ever seen (not even WoW is this bad, and I've been playing that MMO since 2004).

jommerryrth

Even more than that, someone posted about losing 460mil in game gold. And all the pw resets with no activation code sent. On and on it goes

Warhawke_80

Well...DDOS attacks usually don't happen at the servers...they happen at the ISP, up until a couple years ago these were hard to defend against, but now it is much easier to identify between normal and abnormal traffic...

I really don't think it's a DDOS problem, it more than likely a DNS amplification issue. and while that could be malicious it is more likely a net code issue and they are hard to pin down.


You can have the bestest of the best Network people and still struggle with amplification issues ...I know that isn't going to stop folks from yelling at the devs...but intermittent failure is a beast to hunt down and resolve.

Dokolus

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Well...DDOS attacks usually don't happen at the servers...they happen at the ISP, up until a couple years ago these were hard to defend against, but now it is much easier to identify between normal and abnormal traffic...

I really don't think it's a DDOS problem, it more than likely a DNS amplification issue. and while that could be malicious it is more likely a net code issue and they are hard to pin down.


You can have the bestest of the best Network people and still struggle with amplification issues ...I know that isn't going to stop folks from yelling at the devs...but intermittent failure is a beast to hunt down and resolve.

I can understand that, but this happened in the past few days and affected their servers globally, on a scale that felt like it was a DDOS, and they themselves specified that it wasn't the free week players nor the new EGS ones causing the issues. Had it been their own issues caused on their own end, they would have said as such and admitted they were the ones causing the trouble, but their post wasn't admitting that, they said "external", as in not their own network.

The game itself has the same issues with bot farmers just like WoW does, and I know DDOS attacks have been on the rise in the past decade, so I wouldn't exactly put it past and lay a bold claim that this game is never going to be attacked going forward, and that future issues are going to be internally caused by their own network staff themselves.

There was a theory recently going around over on reddit that Zeni greatly increased their prices for ESO and it's services in Argentina, and well, that region is also known for containing groups that perform co-ordinated DDOS attacks, just like there are some in Russia and China, and seeing as how the world is now fully entering official recession, I absolutely wouldn't put it past them getting mad and performing said attacks.

I just find it hard to believe that greatly increasing prices in one region and expecting everyone to sit down and shut up isn't an expectation anymore, not with the rise in cyber attacks. If people are annoyed at price hikes and VPN's don't work to bypass regional prices, then yes, people are going to get mad enough to want to attack back.

If you had said this to me during the very early 00's, when MMO's were starting to take off, and pinned it on an engineering/network staff issue, I'd likely believe you, but we're in 2023, and DDOS's have become near commonplace, and people are fed up with price hikes in their regions and generally getting fed up with not being able to bypass those price hikes (can't really do it on Steam anymore, since publishers complained to Valve to have them justify regional price purchase locks, which is 100% designed to subvert people in poorer regions, or those in richer regions trying to get a game at a cheaper price).

Warhawke_80

Dokolus wrote: »

If you had said this to me during the very early 00's, when MMO's were starting to take off, and pinned it on an engineering/network staff issue, I'd likely believe you, but we're in 2023, and DDOS's have become near commonplace,.

Yeah They are commonplace...but are much easier to defend against, hell there are even enterprise solutions that dose a decent job, even against Smurf attacks these days...I just don't think this is some kind of revenge attack that is unstoppable, I could be wrong but it really does have all the earmarks of a Amplification issue.

Dokolus

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Dokolus wrote: »

If you had said this to me during the very early 00's, when MMO's were starting to take off, and pinned it on an engineering/network staff issue, I'd likely believe you, but we're in 2023, and DDOS's have become near commonplace,.

Yeah They are commonplace...but are much easier to defend against, hell there are even enterprise solutions that dose a decent job, even against Smurf attacks these days...I just don't think this is some kind of revenge attack that is unstoppable, I could be wrong but it really does have all the earmarks of a Amplification issue.

yes I know that, but what I'm trying to get at is involvement of the FBI, who do indeed get involved with big game companies getting harassed by these kinds of attacks, and well, ESO has had these over the years as the community and journos have been pointing out.

This recent issue is cited as "external", and when I hear "external", I see external threat, and one that should be dealt with soon as and tracked down via third party involvement to at least shut down the ones causing the issues. It's the 20th today, and I still cannot login for more than 15-20 mins without having my ping shoot sky-high and being flung back to the login screen, and yet I can play every other game within my Steam library that is online based, just fine and dandy, but just not with ESO, and this only become a big issue for me 2 days ago...

One would hope that they resolve this on monday with their maint schedule, because if this doesn't resolve the problems people and myself are currently having, then I guess I'll just go back to WoW for the next few years and come back when ESO finally gets some common stability with it's servers.

I've never had this much of an issue with the game for more than few hours, not nearly 3 days in a solid row.

MrGarlic

ZOS are unlikely to publicly discuss security concerns.

jommerryrth

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS are unlikely to publicly discuss security concerns.

Yah. I was hoping for some honesty. It's probably not going to happen but i thought it worth the effort to at least ask. No harm in asking such a thing is there? It's not like i'm gossiping or spreading rumors. Just asking for some genuine clarification. I hadn't read whatever postthere was about ddos attacks or whatever. Even them saying that much is something but i would think they are minimizing that report. Businesses don't like to admit weaknesses.

kargen27

Thy_Game_Is_Over wrote: »

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS are unlikely to publicly discuss security concerns.

Yah. I was hoping for some honesty. It's probably not going to happen but i thought it worth the effort to at least ask. No harm in asking such a thing is there? It's not like i'm gossiping or spreading rumors. Just asking for some genuine clarification. I hadn't read whatever postthere was about ddos attacks or whatever. Even them saying that much is something but i would think they are minimizing that report. Businesses don't like to admit weaknesses.

Of course businesses don't like to admit weaknesses especially when those weaknesses make them vulnerable to attacks. ZoS telling players someone successfully caused server issues doesn't make anything better for the players and lets the attacker know they caused a problem. That gives at least some kind of recognition to the attacker which in turn gives them incentive to up the attacks.
All we as players need to know is that there is a problem and an estimate as to when that problem might be fixed. Even giving and estimated time for a fix can backfire though as players think the estimate is a hard deadline.

Soarora

Thy_Game_Is_Over wrote: »

MrGarlic wrote: »

ZOS are unlikely to publicly discuss security concerns.

I hadn't read whatever postthere was about ddos attacks or whatever. Even them saying that much is something but i would think they are minimizing that report. Businesses don't like to admit weaknesses.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/641209/update-on-login-issues#latest