888poker suffers DDoS attacks

The industry continues to be plagued by targeted attempts to take poker rooms offline during a month of huge guarantees.

After PokerStars and partypoker suffered Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks last month there was growing speculation that the worst was not over, given September is the busiest month of the year for online poker. 

Now 888poker are the latest operator to suffer a DDoS attack. They have had major connection issues since September 5 and they emailed their customers over the weekend to confirm it was a DDoS attack. An 888poker representative commented on the 2+2 forum today:

As many of you may already know, we have experienced intermittent disruptions of our service to you due to DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. This has affected our ability to provide you with a comprehensive poker experience. On behalf of the team, I apologise for the inconvenience caused and want you to know that the entire 888poker Team continues to work diligently to mitigate these attacks. Addressing technical issues, outstanding member concerns and restoring normality to our poker room is our top priority. As you can imagine, our contact volumes are much higher than usual; therefore there may be delays in our responses. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we continue to work to get our service to you.

This comes at the end of their low stakes ChampionChips tournament series and ahead of the XL Eclipse series which starts on Thursday and includes a $1 million guaranteed Main Event. At the time of writing players are still struggling to get onto the site.   

This is the latest in a string of DDoS attacks that have plagued the industry, and in the last few months alone PokerStars, partypoker and the Winning Poker Network have all be affected. Winamax are also rumoured to have suffered from DDoS attacks and Daily Fantasy Sports site DraftKings have recently filed a complaint relating to an attack. 

DDoS attacks happen for a number of reasons but more often than not it is extortion, as the attackers try to blackmail operators into paying not to attack them. As September is the biggest month of the year for online poker with millions guaranteed, most industry insiders believe this to be the same group of people targeting all the poker sites. 

Have you been impacted by this? Let us know in the comments: