‘Minecraft’ DDoS attack leaves whole country without internet
The only internet provider in Andorra suffered a series of DDoS attacks linked to a multi-day ‘Minecraft’ tournament
Since Friday the small European country of Andorra has been suffering internet outages due to a series of DDoS attacks that have been crippling the nation’s only internet service provider.
The attacks seem to have been linked to an ongoing Twitch Rivals event, where 150 streamers from Spain, Latin America, and Andorra have been competing for $100,000 in a multi-day ‘Squid Game’-themed ‘Minecraft’ tournament. With over a million viewers, the event has become one of the most successful Twitch Rivals tournaments in history, but it seems not everyone got a fair chance.
The first day of the tournament reportedly saw no problems, but on day two all Andorran players, who constituted a significant portion of the 150 competitors, started experiencing disconnects and most ended up getting disqualified from the tournament.
But it wasn’t just the streamers. The entire country has been experiencing connectivity problems. On Friday Andorra Telecom, the only ISP in the country, took to Twitter to announce it was experiencing difficulties due to a denial of service attack.
By all accounts the provider managed to fix the issue at the time, but for many Andorran players it was already too late.
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— Voces de Squid Game Minecraft ???? (@LaVozDeTodo) January 22, 2022
The next day the few Andorran participants that remained were wiped out due to yet another DDoS attack, as Andorra Telecom issued another alert about internet outages. Many now believe that these attacks have been specifically aimed against the tournament participants in hopes of robbing them of a chance to win the coveted $100,000 prize.
And despite all Andorran streamers having dropped out of the tournament at this point, the DDoS attacks against Andorra Telecom seem to continue, as the provider has been issuing the same alert about internet outages every day since Friday.