DraftKings given legal permission to pursue DDoS attackers

DraftKings has been given permission to track down the perpetrators of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack against the firm shortly after it launched it sports betting in August.

The operator said in court filings last week its site was hit with triple the usual activity just before midnight on August 7, which the company fended off without losing service.

However, the attacker tried again at midday the next day, when DraftKings was down for around half an hour.

“As a result of the attack, plaintiff’s personnel spent several days containing the attack and mitigating further potential damage,” DraftKings said.

The company was given permission by Judge Mark L. Wolf to track the companies that own the IP addresses responsible for the attack, in a bid to prevent future attacks and take further legal action.

“We recently detected and immediately responded to a DDoS attack,” said R. Stanton Dodge, DraftKings’ chief legal officer.

“No confidential customer or company information was compromised. However, DraftKings takes security very seriously. This filing is a necessary step to identify the responsible parties and hold them accountable for their actions.”

The DFS operator reportedly plans to issue subpoenas to companies that have registered the IP addresses, although cyber security experts said it was unlikely they would be easy to track down.

The use of DDoS attacks against e-commerce companies and gambling operators is nothing new. In August, several poker sites, including partypoker and PokerStars were hit with similar attacks.

The motives of the attackers are not always clear, although when William Hill was hit in late 2016, the hackers demanded money to stop the assault.