Andorra Telecom, the only ISP in the principality of Andorra, suffered repeated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks during a multi-day Twitch gaming tournament. The DDoS attacks occurred during the scheduled SquidCraft Games tournament in Minecraft, one of the most successful Twitch Rivals tournaments ever broadcast. Eight or more Andorran streamers were eliminated from the Twitch tournament after the second day of attacks due to their repeated disconnects. There is some suspicion that perpetrators planned the DDoS attacks on Andorra Telecom to cheat the Andorran's of their chance to win the $100,000 pot.
The SquidCraft Games was a highly anticipated Twitch streaming event designed to emulate the hit Netflix series called The Squid Game in Minecraft. As noted, it has been a viral game streaming event with a peak viewership of over a million on day two of the event. As per the TV series, this is an elimination game, and in this Twitch event, there is a healthy prize pot of $100,000 to ensure participants would be highly competitive. The event will end on Tuesday.
Ordinary Andorran Internet Users Become Collateral Damage in the SquidCraft Games
A significant portion of the 150 SquidCraft games participants lives in Andorra. Spanish language reports of the event confirm that day one went without a hitch for all players, in terms of fairness. The games "green light, red light," and "hide and seek" ran smoothly to their conclusions.
The "cookie game" had to be suspended on day two due to a programming glitch. After that, however, the DDoS attack on Andorra Telecom began, and eight or more remaining participants from the principality all had their connections and Twitch streaming cut simultaneously. Unfortunately, the whole of Andorra had little or no internet connectivity for over half an hour after the start of the DDoS attacks.
About an hour after the DDoS had caused the above Twitch tournament calamity for the streamers, Andorra Telecom Tweeted to admit that it was getting back to normal after a DDoS attack. Until that time, the disgruntled SquidCraft Games participants could only postulate on the reasons for their disconnects. The Andorran contingent returned on the following day of the tournament, but another DDoS on Andorra Telecom inspired an exasperated sounding Tweet from the ISP.
All the Andorran participants in the SquidCraft Games got eliminated from the Twitch tournament. It is sad and unfair to go out this way, but the organizers didn't have a lot of choices.
Highly Suspicious DDoS
Some suspect that DDoS attacks targeted Andorra Telecom due to this tournament and the large prize at stake. For example, on Twitter, Internet observers NetBlocks asserted that the Saturday evening attack was confirmed to be targeted at Team Andorra. Hopefully, some follow-up investigations and reports will point the finger more accurately, and the perpetrator disclosed.
Meanwhile, The SquidCraft Games continues into day four of six later today (from 2 pm ET), with 42 Twitch streamers left.
