CSGO hacker facing 6 years in prison over alleged DDoS attack
Ruining a game usually lands you a 30-minute matchmaking ban, but one griefer is staring at six years in prison.
Swedish police have arrested a citizen accused of cyberattacks on Counter-Strike: Global Offensive matchmaking service Esportal. The suspect is believed to have launched thousands of direct denial of service attacks on the website, specifically targeting certain streamers. This arrest comes as cybercrimes come more and more under the spotlight due to an uptick in ransomware attacks.
Esportal has accused the suspect of being responsible for a massive number of DDoS attacks targeting its service. DDoS attacks utilize a network of computers to flood a website with unexpected traffic. This leads to site downtime, slow servers, and a terrible user experience. The suspect is also accused of stealing user information, though details of those claims are confidential.
Esportal is one of the most popular CSGO matchmaking services in northern Europe, especially Sweden. The service boasts 500,000 active players. Esportal’s official social media channels acknowledged DDoS attacks as recently as July 13, just over a month before the arrest was
announced by Swedish media.
Vi vet om problemet ang. streamers som får deras matcher förstörda på grund av riktade DDoS attacker mot deras spelservrar, vi jobbar intensivt med våra serveroperatörer för att både förhindra och åtgärda problemen så snabbt som möjligt. Vi ber om ursäkt och tackar för tålamodet!
— Esportal (@esportalcom)
July 13, 2021
“We know about the problem regarding streamers who have their matches destroyed due to targeted DDoS attacks on their game servers. We are working intensively with our server operators to both prevent and fix the problems as quickly as possible. We apologize and thank you for your patience,” Esportal said.
Esportal’s internal investigation ended on July 27 when the company handed its findings over to legal authorities. The hacker was arrested on August 6. The attacks allegedly took place throughout the summer.
If the individual is found guilty, the minimum for such an offense in Sweden is six months in prison but the penalty could escalate to six years if the suspect is a repeat offender. DDoS attacks and similar forms of targeted harassment also go against Valve’s end user license agreement.
Read Also
Counter-Strike
Is CS2 Dying in 2026?
Owen Harsono
Counter-Strike is one of the longest-standing esports franchises, having built a loyal fanbase over the course of two decades. However, if you’ve browsed through social media platforms across the past few months, you might have seen people claiming that the game is dying or on a steady decline. Below we’ll take a look at why people are talking about this and answer the question of “is CS2 really dying?” One ...
News
The Esports Nations Cup Has Been Postponed to November 2027
Ben Boland
The 2026 Esports Nations Cup has been suspended until 2027. The Esports Foundation announced the delay on August 18, citing ongoing regional uncertainty. The inaugural competition was scheduled to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, comprising over 100 national teams and featuring 16 different games, including League of Legends. According to the Esports Foundation, this decision follows ongoing developments in the region and consultation with key stakeholders. Moving the event ...
Esports Betting
MLBB is the most-watched game from the EWC, and it’s hard to see another game beating it
Michael Hassall
The Esports World Cup 2026 has officially passed its midway point and viewership figures for the tournament have surpassed many expectations so far, as per Esports Charts. The viewership tracking site revealed new statistics for the event on Aug. 6, showcasing just how many games had set new records in viewership, including one name leading the way in views: Mobile Legends: Bang Bang. MLBB leads the viewership charts with the ...
Counter-Strike
CS2 at the EWC 2026 Preview: Odds, Details, Predictions and More
Owen Harsono
Top-tier Counter-Strike action returns at the Esports World Cup, as 32 of the best teams will take the trip to Paris to compete for millions of dollars. If you’re looking to watch the event, here’s everything you need to know and which teams to keep an eye on. The Esports World Cup is one of the largest CS2 events if we’re looking at prize pools, as $2,000,000 will be distributed ...
News
Opinion: Is Esports Tracing the Same Evolutionary Path As Traditional Sports?
Cecilia Ciocchetti
What happens when an industry compresses centuries of sporting evolution into less than a decade or two? Communities become global audiences overnight, rivalries spread through social media within minutes, and tournaments turn into entertainment products faster than ever before. And so what took traditional sports centuries to build has taken esports a fraction of that. From local communities to sold out arenas, and from informal matches to Olympic-style events, the ...
Counter-Strike
BLAST Bounty 2026 semi-final predictions: who’s making it to the grand final?
Owen Harsono
The top four teams we’re seeing at the BLAST Bounty 2026 semi-finals are far from what anyone would expect before the tournament began, but here we are. We’re only three matches from crowning a winner, so let’s take a look at the best BLAST Bounty semi-final predictions for both upcoming matchups. Starting the semi-finals off is a banger of a series between FaZe Clan and Team Spirit, which is one ...
Counter-Strike
We Ranked The Top 5 Most Hated CS2 Maps
Owen Harsono
If you’re a Counter-Strike player, you probably have that one map you always ban first in every Premier game — and you're not alone as almost everyone has one too. Below, we’ll take a look at the most hated maps in Counter-Strike history and explain why they are disliked by the community at large. Anubis is one of the newer releases in the Counter-Strike 2 map pool, but it has ...
