On Sunday, February 25, 2024 Dplus Kia faced off against DRX, but going in no one expected the series to last 7 whole hours. Now, another attack has caused disruption in another LCK match.
The LCK has been dealing with some technical difficulties the last few days. It all started on Sunday, February 25, 2024, when Dplus Kia faced off against the last place team DRX, which resulted in a 7-hour-long match between the teams.
The LCK and Riot Korea thought they had everything under control but on February 28, 2024, when T1 was set to play against seventh place FearX even more issues plagued the broadcast, resulting in the game being postponed.
DDoS Attack On LCK Causes Games To Be Postponed
On February 25, DRX and Dplus Kia faced off in a regular season LCK match. The series started at 3 pm local time and going into it, no one thought they'd still be watching – or playing – by 9 pm local time. The series was plagued with constant pauses and outages, which were later confirmed to be specific DDoS attacks.
These attacks caused the second match between OK Brion and Kwangdong Freecs to be postponed, with the LCK opting to have them prerecord the match when they play, which they would then broadcast a day later on February 26.
Announcement on response protocols for remaining #LCK matches pic.twitter.com/SXkRgUEfwB
— LCK (@LCK) February 28, 2024
Then on February 28, 2024 another statement by the LCK was released, giving more information on the attack and what measures Riot was taking to combat these problems in the future. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be enough, since the second match of the day between T1 and FearX was heavily influenced by another DDoS attack, which caused game 1 of the series to be continuously paused.
The DDoS attacks cause the ping to spike, meaning players will be unable to play to their fullest potential. This has been an issue on the South Korean League of Legends server for months already, making fans even more frustrated that Riot hasn't been able to contain the problem and now it's bleeding into the esports scene as well.
I have made an inquiry to #LCK around
— Ashley Kang (@AshleyKang) February 28, 2024
- What safety measures LCK implemented between KDF vs BRO had multiple pauses (Later confirmed due to DDOS) and today's T1 vs FOX
- What LCK's new DDOS Protocol looks like pic.twitter.com/0vo6RSA84G
Ashley Kang of Korizon esports even stated that this has been "impacting Korea for weeks. Solo queue, streamers and players alike". In a later tweet she explained that this has been going on around 2 months already on the server.
The Korean League server has been plagued by DDOS for the last two months, with individuals being rendered unable to play solo queue. Major streamers, or professional players like Faker, Chovy were seen stopping solo queue.
With this issue being well-known fans are frustrated that preventative measures hadn't been put into place sooner to prevent something like this from happening on the LCK stage.
[Announcement]
— LCK (@LCK) February 28, 2024
Both teams agreed to proceed with the remainder of Match 52 T1 vs FOX that were postponed due to continuous DDoS attacks.
The pre-recorded games will be broadcasted at 00:30, Feb 29 KST. pic.twitter.com/39SGcX8zxK
Riot did explain that the measures to stop and attack like this did not work on February 28, because the pattern and methods of the attacks continuously changed.
T1 and FearX decided to finish off the first game of the series amidst the constant pauses, but the second and possibly third match will be postponed to another time and date. These games will be broadcast on February 29, with the teams playing from their facilities and recording the match from there.