League of Legends server stability: Will the problems be over soon?

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Riot Games issued a statement earlier today where they address the ongoing server problems. They stated that a lot of work has already been done to improve the situation that has been plaguing LoL for a long time. Recently, however, they have been attacked by hackers at an alarmingly increasing magnitude.

Riot Games' VP of Network Operations Ron 'Sonicdeathmonk' Williams (hereafter referred to as SDM) explains:

We have seen significant increases in hackers running distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) against game and platform servers. League of Legends has not been the only target, most large game companies have been feeling the pain along with other online businesses, but we have been a more frequent target than most. In the last 6 months over half of all DDoS attacks we have seen against LoL have been in the last 2 months. We are currently seeing 2 to 4 attacks every day against one or more regions. The strength of these attacks has increased significantly over the last few months as the arms race against hackers continues to grow in scale.

As SDM states, it has come so far that it's not only their servers that have issues it's a problem that they see recurring globally and amongst other games as well. It has become so bad even that ISPs and Telecoms circuits have problems as well. Not only does Riot have to resolve problems in their data centers, they also have to work closely with the ISPs and Telecoms to help them solve issues they encounter due to the huge amounts of traffic. Something that will start reflecting of clients other than Riot.

The attacks happen on a baffling scale and the input that is needed to handle these attacks is immense. One could say it's a warzone out there. The first signs of a cyberwar raging through the land of the internet! SDM aptly names their efforts to stop the attacks an "arms race" as their defense gets stronger, so will the attacks:

Of course this is an arms race so as one defense gets put in place, eventually we can expect new methods to launch attacks that will often require time to put a defense in place. About half of the equipment investment in League of Legends is network gear with a large part of that in place to just handle the ongoing rise in frequency and size of DDoS attacks. We are investing even more every day around the world and will continue to work hard to win the fight. We are also working closely with our equipment providers and other services to make sure we are doing everything we can to protect the many components that make up League of Legends.

SDM ensures that they are working non-stop to provide the players the best gaming experience possible. He ends the post with the promise that things will get better, that he expects daily improvement and that he will see us on the Fields of Justice. I do have a feeling he is stuck on another field of justice, one where they are punishing hackers and DDoSers, keeping the land safe for us regular folk.

Riot Games is doing everything they can to fight against the hackers and thwart DDoS attacks. The arms race however is something that's affecting more and more businesses and people, as time goes by the arms race will consume a lot more resources as it's already doing today. To give you an idea, over the past half year the size of DDoS attacks (in general not especially aimed at Riot Games) have tripled in size, according to KerbsonSecurity. It is an increasingly alarming problem that definitely needs some extra attention in terms of how we can defend ourselves and how game developers can defend themselves.

Elliot Speck, Cyber Risk consultant at PwC Australia, told onGamers that it'll forever be an arms race. "NTP amplification is not going away fast. Neither is the stock DNS amp. Flooding the gameservers is now a thing and that will continue being a thing."

If you want to read the full statement of Riot Games make sure you check out the forum post.