Ubisoft hits Rainbow Six Siege DDoS attackers with lawsuit

What you need to know

• Ubisoft has targeted individuals behind third-party Rainbow Six Siege distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) services in a new lawsuit.
• The lawsuit claims the subscription services "are continuing to cause, serious and irreparable harm to Ubisoft," amid ongoing efforts to tackle cheaters in the tactical shooter.
• It follows a prior initiative from Ubisoft, outlining gameplay, technical, and legal action, resulting in a 93 percent drop in DDoS attacks.

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege witnessed an uptick in network attacks throughout 2019, infamously marring the release of the Operation Ember Rise expansion with denial-of-service (DoS) and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Flooding servers with requests with the aim of overload, it set to manipulate the game's skill-based ranking system, with a significant upset to the game's tactical multiplayer.

The prevalence of attacks saw fast action from Ubisoft, outlining planned gameplay, technical, and legal crackdowns to combat the attacks. Those efforts eventually aided the 93 percent drop in DDoS activity, hugely reducing the presence across Rainbow Six Siege. And with a new lawsuit filed by Ubisoft, we're seeing legal action targeting individuals allegedly tied to third-party DDoS services.

Court documents obtained by Polygon target several individuals behind "SNG.ONE," a website that sells DDoS subscriptions. With tiered memberships, their website reportedly allows individuals to easily target Rainbow Six Siege services, alongside other top titles like Fortnite, Call of Duty, and FIFA. Ubisoft reportedly looks to see the services shut down while granting damages and fees.

"The DDoS Services represent an enormous threat to R6S and Ubisoft. The DDoS Services have caused, and are continuing to cause, serious and irreparable harm to Ubisoft, its valuable player community, and its business interests," the document claims.

"Defendants are well aware of the harm that the DDoS Services and DDoS Attacks cause to Ubisoft. Indeed, Defendants have gone out of their way to taunt and attempt to embarrass Ubisoft for the damage its services have caused to R6S. For example, a Twitter account operated by one or more of Defendants has repeatedly mocked Ubisoft's security efforts, including Ubisoft's efforts to ban individuals utilizing Defendants' DDoS Services." The lawsuit also claims that defendants published a fictional seizure noticed on a website, in an effort to "hastily sought to conceal evidence."

The lawsuit follows various efforts to combat player frustration in Rainbow Six Siege, tackling hacking, boosting, exploits, and more throughout 2019. Legal action marks the latest step in this initiative, as Rainbow Six Siege prepares for the Year 5 kick-off in February.