Rust Servers Under Siege by Network Attacks

The developers of survival sim Rust are having survival issues of their own, thanks to an aggressive attack on the game’s servers.

Facepunch Studios’ Rust is an open-world sandbox that blends the emergent multiplayer gameplay of DayZ with Minecraft‘s low-tech crafting and exploration, wrapped up in a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-flavored shell. I apologize if that description made you interested, because right now the game can’t really be played. Rust is an online-only title, and no servers have been available for the past couple of days as a result of an aggressive DDOS attack.

DDOS (Distributed Denial Of Service) attacks basically overload servers with more requests than it can process, crashing whatever that server was supposed to be doing. It appears that whoever is attacking Rust is taking a more tactical approach, though. “So after some investigating it appears that the servers are receiving DDOS attacks,” Facepunch reports. “Not the usual … DDOS attack. It kind of seems like someone is periodically grabbing the server list and attacking any occupied server with a bunch of empty packets.”

That strategy removes any doubt – somebody is trying hard to shut down Rust players. Rust hasn’t even made a full release – it’s currently in alpha, available via Steam Early Access, and somebody’s already targeting it. The developers have been working over the holiday weekend to implement countermeasures, and the servers have slowly begun to stabilize. Attacks are still popping up, though, so be warned if you decided to venture online. Facepunch apologizes for the difficulties, and hopes to have a long-term solution ready soon.

Source: Rust