Cheating and Distributed Denial of Service Attacks
Metal Gear Online has been plagued by several methods of cheating including lag-switching and exploiting game glitches to gain an unfair advantage over other players. In addition to the conventional methods of cheating, Metal Gear Online has also been the target of amount of frequent DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks since 2011 up to now.
When the attacks first started in 2011, the targets were, primarily, the individual players of an opposing team in an online match. Attackers used PC software to scan the router for connected IP addresses, effectively gathering the IPs of every connected player in the match. They then carried out the attacks on each individual player on the opposing team (by attacking any IP they didn't recognize) until all of its members disconnected, causing the attacker's team to win the match by default. KONAMI silently addressed this by masking IPs of players in official modes, however, the attackers have since turned to targeting the servers themselves. The server attacks cause massive server overload, typically resulting in extreme lag while navigating the in-game menus, but more importantly, the disconnection of dozens, sometimes hundreds, of players who happened to be playing online at the time of the attack.
Although the DDoS attacks typically occur during the regularly scheduled in-game Survival Mode and Tournament Mode where players compete to win in-game "Reward Points" currency or exclusive virtual clothing for characters (with the DDoS attacks effectively cheating legitimate players out of the prizes they've earned), the main Free Battle lobbies have also been targeted as the attacks have become increasingly frequent.
Because of the nature of these attacks, it is difficult to effectively report them to KONAMI through the in-game report player system, thus victims have provided evidence through uploading DDoS attack evidence on YouTube.
On August 31st, KONAMI issued a statement assuring players that any persons violating the "Codes of Conduct" will be banned from service. However, although banning individuals found to have violated the Codes of Conduct either temporarily or permanently keeps them from using their MGO accounts, the attacker does not even need to own a PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network ID, nor a copy of MGO to continue carrying out the attacks as they are attacking the IPs of KONAMI's servers from the outside.
Up until it's shutdown, the DDoS attacks had not ceased.
Read more about this topic: Metal Gear Online, Other Information
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