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COPYCAT ATTACK

A cyber-attack takes Overwatch 2 offline for the second time in a week

OVERWATCH 2 was briefly taken offline last night due to another cyber-attack.

On October 5, just one day after Overwatch 2 officially launched, the servers were briefly crippled by a cyber-attack known as a DDOS attack.

Overwatch 2's servers have been hit with a second DDOS attack.
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Overwatch 2's servers have been hit with a second DDOS attack.Credit: Activision Blizzard

This is a type of attack where someone will set up several bots to continuously send data to the game’s server.

With so much data to process and limited processing power, the server will grind to a halt, stopping most players from connecting.

The first time this happened it was resolved rather quickly, but the problem wasn’t prevented, and it’s happened again.

Whether it’s the same perpetrators as last time or not is unknown, but the servers were taken offline last night for “emergency maintenance” after the second DDOS attack in under a week.

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It came at the worst possible time for Overwatch 2’s developers, as they were in the middle of fixing some major bugs when it happened.

Players were logging in yesterday to find that roughly a third of the roster has been mysteriously locked.

This was because two characters, Bastion and Torbjorn, had been intentionally locked by the developers while they fixed game-breaking bugs involving them.

Unfortunately whatever method they used to lock the characters got over-eager and locked more than it should have.

The DDOS attack is now over and the servers are up and running, but fans are left wondering if this will happen again anytime soon.

The developers are reluctant to give out any details, as anything they reveal is a potential clue for attackers.

This incident is just the latest in a long line of problems for Overwatch 2, as the game’s launch has been nothing short of a disaster.

SMS Protect has caused all sorts of controversy, the extremely long queues have been annoying players all week, and even those that do get in may be kicked for getting an achievement.

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Those who have been able to play the game for a real amount of time have positive things to say about it though.

If you’re yet to dive in or are curious about Overwatch 2, then it might be best to wait a little longer for all of these launch-week problems to die down.

Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of .

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