Ubisoft's Internet DRM Servers Are Under Attack

By Marcus Yam
published

Ubisoft's DRM authentication servers for Silent Hunter 5 and Assassin's Creed II are being hit with a DDoS attack, blocking legit gamers from playing.

Gamers trying to play Silent Hunter 5 and Assassin's Creed II over the weekend might have been unable to due to Ubisoft's DRM server being down.

The games publisher is now telling that the outage was due to an denial of service attack. The company announced via its Twitterstream:

Apologies to anyone who couldn’t play ACII or SH5 yesterday. Servers were attacked which limited service from 2:30pm to 9pm Paris time

95% of players were not affected, but a small group of players attempting to open a game session did receive denial of service errors

Shortly after, Ubisoft added the following tweet, expressing its pleasure in its war against piracy.

We're happy to say ACII & SH5 are withstanding the efforts to crack them. We see the rumors but still confirm no valid cracked versions exist

Those behind the attacks haven't given up. Ubisoft most recently tweeted again:

Our servers are under attack again. Some gamers are experiencing trouble signing in. We're working on it and will keep you posted

Stay tuned.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
63 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Trueno07
    SOB.

    This is the worst way possible to convince companies that heavy-DRM is a bad idea.
    Reply
  • doc70
    Boycott Ubisoft's games and any other DRM-loaded game. Hit them where it hurts: the bottom-line.
    And I wouldn't bet for a second against those that are hard at work to crack that SOB.
    Reply
  • Awesome :)
    Reply
  • zoemayne
    not smart on both sides
    Reply
  • smithereen
    Wow. Real mature.
    Reply
  • nukem950
    While in theory this type of DRM sounds good, it really is a terrible idea.
    2 points that come to mind for me:

    1. This is absolutely wrong for them to do this.
    2. This does bring up the point of when the servers are down due to power, money, "Lack of interest in a game", bankruptcy, DOS attacks, etc.

    Reply
  • belardo
    UBISoft...

    Take the hint. DRM is costing you MONEY, COSTING YOU CUSTOMERS. Its a waste of money and resources to add the DRM to your games... it breaks the game... yours won't be the first nor the last.

    Solution, come out with a patch that removes the internet DRM... imagine if ALL your future games are knocked out. EA is already bad enough.

    DRM does NOT stop pirates! Never had, never will.
    Reply
  • The_Prophecy
    For once, I am actually glad that botnet's exist. I won't be buying Assassin's Creed 2 unless Ubisoft relaxes the restrictions.It probably won't affect me or 95% of their other customers, but I refuse to support a company that does what Ubisoft has done with AC 2 based solely on principle. I was pissed off about Spore, and I'm just as pissed off about this.
    Reply
  • belardo
    Forgot to add.

    When you decide to no-longer support the product, get bought out or go out of business... how are these people supposed to PLAY the games they PAID money for?!

    So yes... boycott YOUR products... ALL of them! Same as I boycott EA games with their SecuROM limit installs and background rootkit like programs.

    DRM only hurts your customers.

    Mirrors Edge = cracked
    Bioshock = cracked
    Spore = cracked

    Somebody name a single game that *IS* not cracked... and not just that, was is the record for the LONGEST lasting game before its cracked? 3~5 days?
    Reply
  • mrdrinkinglysol
    Nice going. Now you can look forward to even less PC games because of attacks like this. Why would they even bother with PC gamers if they're going to act like spoiled little kids when they don't get their way?
    Reply