CSGO pro claims he was DDoSed during an official match

Even professionals can fall victim to DDoS attacks in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

A CSGO pro player claims that he was hit with a DDoS during a pivotal match at Pinnacle Winter Series. Haris “H4RR3” Hadžić, a rifler for 777 Esports, took to social media to voice his complaints regarding an alleged targeted DDoS attack on him.

If true, the incident might have caused 777 to lose a match it would have otherwise won. The perpetrator is still unknown, but the timing raises suspicions of possible criminal activity.

Based on H4RR3’s social media post times, the match in question was most likely 777 Esports vs. 1win at Pinnacle Winter Series 2. The week-five match would decide which of the two squads would advance to the playoffs. Due to this loss, 777 no longer has a shot at the $40,000 grand prize or a trip to the $250,000 LAN Sweet LAN in August. Making matters worse, the match ended in triple overtime with a score of 28-24 for 1win. 

H4RR3’s performance as a result of the attack might have swayed the entire match. Either way, 777 Esports will now narrowly miss the playoffs with a match record of 2-3.

The perpetrator of the attack is unknown, but the unfortunate timing and importance of the match suggest nefarious purposes. This sort of targeted attack isn’t unheard of, and isn’t close to the most outrageous allegation of this sort. Other figures in CSGO esports have claimed everything up to actual, physical sabotage of team facilities in order to influence match results.

It’s possible that someone was trying to influence the results of the match. This sort of incident has happened in the past, and is typically motivated by betting concerns. Betting sites or the Esports Integrity Commission could get involved if the situation is deemed severe enough.

What can a DDoS attack do in CSGO?

Distributed denial of service attacks, commonly known as DDoS, are a common form of cyberattack where a computer receives thousands of information requests in a short amount of time. These sorts of attacks are able to clog up a user’s internet connection, causing their connection to become unstable or drop. In the case of CSGO, a DDoS can greatly increase the ping of the player and interfere with their in-game performance.

With the use of a malware-infected network, DDoS attacks can be so extreme that they completely shut off a user’s internet connection. In H4RR3’s case, a DDoS attack of this caliber would immediately stop the tournament until it could be resolved.

There’s no word at this point regarding whether this will be investigated.