STEPN, a move-to-earn game, suffer a DDoS hack after implementing an anti-cheating upgrade

[TL: DR]

Popular Move-to-earn Solana Blockchain-based app StepN faces DDOS Cyber attacks after the upgrade.
StepN launches anti-cheating system SMAC - StepN' Model for Anti-Cheating.
DDOS attack featured over 25 Million requests within a short period in a bid to crash StepN's server.
StepN updated the community and public about resolving the network challenge after more than 24 hours instead of its requested 12 hours.

Keywords: Move-to-Earn, Stepn, DDOS, Solana, Move-to-earn Game



StepN suffers DDoS attack

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StepN, a Move-to-earn game application built on the Solana Blockchain, has reportedly suffered multiple denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. The Move-to-earn game that rewards users for walking, jogging, and performing exercises with NFT sneakers took to Twitter on June 5 to announce DDoS attacks on its servers after upgrading its anti-cheating system.

According to StepN, while reporting on Twitter, it advised her users to cease exercising and "get some rest" as their activities would not be recorded or rewarded. At the same time, StepN confirmed it had started work on recovering and securing the server to prevent future attacks.


It is quite unfortunate that the StepN platform has been a victim of such attacks in recent months, as this appears to be the third DDoS attack on the platform in three months. According to the platform, people attempted to disable the platform's server by sending millions of DDoS attacks in April and May.


DDoS Attack Despite Anti-Cheating Upgrade

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StepN, on June 3, released an update about its new system upgrade, The "STEPN Model for Anti-Cheating," or SMAC, which is an Artificial Intelligence-powered mechanism. This upgrade aims to improve the StepN app's fairness and transparency by using deep data analytics and real-time tracking to determine whether or not there are any instances of cheating by users.

According to the team, while describing the anti-cheating system, they commented that "Thanks to our machine learning system, the SMAC technology primarily targets movement simulation by altering genuine walking/running data,".

To the StepN team's unwelcome surprise and irrespective of their measures to maintain the platform's performance, multiple cyber attacks occurred due to some significant flaws in the upgrade.

SMAC wrongly identified some genuine users as bots shortly after the upgrade, causing major platform issues for STEPN. Other matters included network issues caused by a "25 million DDOS attack" and the inability to track any bots on the platform for a short period. In a statement released by StepN, they appealed, stating

"We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience caused to users. The anti-cheating improvement may appear minor, yet it is a critical component of StepN's long-term development.


StepN's Action and Work towards Recovery

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The Move-to-Earn Game platform swung to immediate action and response after discovering the errors and flaws of its upgrade due to the attacks it suffered and promised its users and community in its statement on Twitter to resolve the whole issue between 1-12 hours.

Speaking on Twitter, StepN said securing the servers and recovery could take up to 12 hours. "Our engineers are working hard to rectify the difficulties," they added. Once the restoration is complete, we will announce it here. Thank you all for your patience".

Unfortunately, this was not the case, as it took more than 24 hours before StepN engineers could resolve the platform's network errors. The team, however, after solving the issues, apologized on Twitter for taking a while to fix the problems and confirmed to users that they can now jog, walk and run without error.


According to Cointelegraph, The Green Satoshi Token(GST), StepN's native token, did not experience any significant price drops despite the unfolding of these events. The GST, on the other hand, was up nearly 10% within 24 hours and trading at $1.04 at the time of their report.


Conclusion

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In recent times, there have been a lot of play-to-earn games and applications coming up with different models of operation. But the challenge of these platforms is a question of capacity, as there they begin to have an increased number of users across the board. Can they maintain the security and sustainability of the economic model they operate by?. If this question is answered accurately, I believe there would be a significant increase in the adoption and prospects of these platforms.






Author: Gate.io Observer: M. Olatunji
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