The hacker group "Sultans Anonymous" claims it has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on US video game developer and publisher Riot Games.
Anonymous Sultan allegedly targeted Riot Games' login portal, the group announced in a Telegram post that the attack lasted between 30 minutes and an hour. However, according to preliminary investigations, the Riot Games website is still active and unaffected. Threat Intelligence also did not confirm the veracity of the claim.
Coincidentally, the alleged attack came two days after the company announced it would be on summer vacation.
If confirmed, it would be the second large-scale cyber attack on Riot Games.
Those involved have contacted Riot Games' media team to confirm the incident. But has yet to get a response from the company.
Cyber attack on Riot Games: A peek into the past
Riot Games, best known for the multiplayer competitive MOBA League of Legends, has been facing recurring cyber threats.
In January, the company acknowledged the cyber attack, which it specifically described as a "social engineering attack" on its Twitter account.
In a series of posts on Twitter, Riot Games assured its extensive user base that no player data or personal information was compromised in the breach.
However, the company admitted that the source code of some of its popular games was stolen, and the seriousness of the attack cannot be overstated.
The attackers then demanded a hefty $10 million ransom, threatening to reveal the stolen source code.
Riot Games flatly rejected the request. And publicly stated on the same day: "Today, we received a ransom email. Needless to say, we will not pay."
While Riot Games acknowledged that the cyberattack disrupted their build environment and could cause subsequent issues, the company is confident that no player data or personal information was compromised.
Anonymous Sultan: The Endless Cyber Threat
First, let’s be clear that Sudan Anonymous is not a new entrant to the cyber threat landscape. They are more like a mature organization. Known for his DDoS attacks against Western entities, Sultan Anonymous is also rumored to be linked to pro-Russian hacking groups such as Killnet.
On the heels of this DDoS attack on Riot Games, the group claimed responsibility for attacks on various media companies. Victims of the attack included high-profile organizations such as the Agence France-Presse (AFP), Hebrew radio station 103 FM and Channel Seven.
Although, the motivation that drives the "Anonymous Sultan" to attack Riot Games is still a mystery, which also reflects the unpredictability of this type of hacker organization.
But judging from its series of attacks, high-profile companies are likely to be their priority targets.
The Sultan of Anonymous and Microsoft: Who is the truth
It's a complicated story, with the Anonymous Sultan having previously had a "clash" with another tech giant, Microsoft.
The hacking group claimed to have successfully breached the company's servers and stole the credentials of more than 30 million customer accounts.
Microsoft, however, has come up with a very different narrative. The company's vehement denials that customer information was compromised also cast a cloud over the truth.
While Microsoft denied that its customer accounts had been compromised, it did acknowledge some disruption caused by Anonymous Sultan.
The company acknowledged that the Anonymous Sudanese hacker group was to blame for the outages and outages in early June. The disruptions affected several key Microsoft services, including Azure, Outlook and OneDrive.
The most controversial of these is that the hacking group claims to have accessed a large database containing more than 30 million Microsoft accounts, emails and passwords. Microsoft has denied it.
In the end, the anonymous sultan sold the database for $50,000. They invite interested buyers to communicate with their Telegram bot.