Massively popular mobile game, Pokémon Go‘s servers are down and while the world collectively freaks out, a hacking group is claiming credit for the server problems.
Hacking collective Poodle Corp announced on Twitter that it had launched an attack to bring the servers down, athough this is yet to be verified.
https://twitter.com/statuses/754298236093857792
The game launched in 26 new countries this morning, and it seems likely the mass of new players could be equally responsible for the server issues.
Poodle Corp, which has targeted League of Legends and Battle.net with DDOS attacks in the last few months, also threatened to launch further attacks in a tweet from one of the group’s purported leaders.
Related: How to battle in Pokémon Go
The game uses augmented reality to superimpose creatures onto real-world environments
DDOS, or distributed denial of service, attacks involve flooding a server with requests in order to overload it and eventually bring it down.
Users trying to log into the game are being shown a message saying their information cannot be retrieved from the server.
Thus far, there’s been no word from developer Niantic Labs or Nintendo on the current problems.
https://twitter.com/statuses/754329907300339712
Pokémon Go has become a worldwide phenomenon, rising to the top of both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store’s most downloaded lists in hours.
The game is set to have more daily users than Twitter, and has already surpassed dating app Tinder in terms of total downloads.
WATCH: What is Pokémon Go?
How are you dealing with Pokémon Go withdrawal? Let us know in the comments.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
