Rockstar faces DDOS attacks, more expected in the future

Rockstar’s online server is reportedly facing DDOS attacks. In the past 24 hours, players have been reporting login issues. Rockstar has not commented on the issue yet; however, it is suspected that the reason behind these hacks is the new Battle Eye anti-cheat system.

As of September 21, GTA players are facing online server-down issues around the world. The players are getting notifications like “Rockstar games online servers are unavailable right now” or “files required to play GTA servers could not be downloaded”. 

Rise in Rockstar servers issues reported. Source: downforeveryoneorjustme.com

Rockstar servers down due to DDOS attacks

A tweet was posted on X by @morsmutual_ reporting about the high possibility of DDOS attacks being the reason behind Rockstar’s server-down issues.

DDoS attack is a Denial of Service Attack that is caused by a disruption in the normal traffic of a website. This disruption is due to the overwhelming amount of internet traffic targeted towards the server or any network.

According to @morsmutual_ the attackers behind these hacks are the people who opposed the newly announced Battle Eye anti-cheat system by Rockstar games. They used a Botnet to disrupt the servers which is also causing issues for the console players.

This claim is also backed up by the fact that another attacker also attacked Battle Eye’s website.

Battle Eye’s attack details. Source: X @morsmutual_

The servers are slowly getting back to normal as further reported by the same Twitter account. However, more such attacks in the future can be expected if the game company’s defense system is not updated. Morsmutual_ explains “It was a very easy BotNet attack that took down the authentication servers, so they have no problems continuing with these attacks for awhile.”

Rockstar Games recently updated GTA V with an anti-cheat Battle Eye system to keep the game experience away from cheaters and hackers. The update had also accidentally released GTA VI PC folders.