Enormous DDOS attack on Steam went largely unnoticed

[Haruspex]

In light of the recent PSN network outage, I'm glad to be a PC gamer and a Steam user.

In August 2024, a massive DDOS attack hit Steam[blog.xlab.qianxin.com]. This targeted several Steam servers across numerous regions globally in the US, Europe and Asia. This was a global assault attempting to disrupt Steam services worldwide.

It was reportedly one of the most intense DDOS attacks ever recorded, but most people, including myself, didn't even notice. Steam's infrastructure proved remarkably resilient.

I think part of the reason for this level of resiliency is that Steam effectively DDOSes itself with every sale, so they've had to ensure the infrastructure is extremely robust to minimize downtime.

If you're wondering where 30% of the money on your game purchases goes, this is a big part of it, rather than "increasing shareholder value" like some other companies.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Mainly because it happened before...

https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/243

And it wasn't the only time.

https://venturebeat.com/games/valve-ddos-cyberattack-caused-the-steam-caching-catastrophe-cachetastrophe/

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Mainly because it happened before...

https://store.steampowered.com/oldnews/243

And it wasn't the only time.

https://venturebeat.com/games/valve-ddos-cyberattack-caused-the-steam-caching-catastrophe-cachetastrophe/

:nkCool:

Oh yeah, the "cachetastrophe" of 2015. I forgot about that one. What's reassuring to me is that Valve seems to learn from these events and they take steps to ensure they don't happen again, and this recent attack last summer seems to suggest the approach is working.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Oh yeah, the "cachetastrophe" of 2015. I forgot about that one. What's reassuring to me is that Valve seems to learn from these events and they take steps to ensure they don't happen again, and this recent attack last summer seems to suggest the approach is working.

I think rose-tinted glasses come into play. I mean, if they learned from such things, then the servers wouldn't struggle every major sale and they'd not have to dial back features or remove them entirely (like with search function during several sales).

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by Chika Ogiue:

I think rose-tinted glasses come into play. I mean, if they learned from such things, then the servers wouldn't struggle every major sale and they'd not have to dial back features or remove them entirely (like with search function during several sales).

You may underestimate just how much traffic they get, especially during those sales. The fact that things stay mostly functional even while the servers are getting hammered during a massive sale is an absolute miracle, and Steam's active user base is larger than all three major consoles combined.

[rawWwRrr]

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

People report all kinds of weirdness during sales. I wouldn't be surprised if the search function slowed down or stopped working for some users, but the platform as a whole just keeps trucking along. Besides Steam, think only massive companies like Google or Amazon have this kind of robust network hardening. Not bad at all for a company with only 400-ish employees.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

Probably the post histories when AI scraping was a big issue. So much that Valve locked post histories behind logins.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

You may underestimate just how much traffic they get, especially during those sales.

I don't estimate at all. But Valve have figures and data from the same sales for all years, and while the number of active accounts may be increasing, it's not at significantly high enough a rate that data from the previous large sale would be rendered significantly out of date for terms of estimating required server capacity.

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

Several years back, it caused quite a fuss on these forums.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

Probably the post histories when AI scraping was a big issue. So much that Valve locked post histories behind logins.

:nkCool:

I assumed they meant the store search from the context.

[kingjames488]

most of why I continue to use steam despite them repeatedly screwing me around on the customer support side is that, for the most part, steam works.

also I have thousands of dollars of games tied up in the platform... but if it didn't work I wouldn't be using it.

steam needs to remember that it needs to work... that whole lapse and windows 11 push was really sickening.

[29933545203998740]

Originally posted by kingjames488:

most of why I continue to use steam despite them repeatedly screwing me around on the customer support side is that, for the most part, steam works.

also I have thousands of dollars of games tied up in the platform... but if it didn't work I wouldn't be using it.

steam needs to remember that it needs to work... that whole lapse and windows 11 push was really sickening.

It is why I made thread as Steam need improvement. Otherwise, it will cause slow collapse.

[Pierce Dalton]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

It happened last time. A lot of people couldn't see their wishlist so they were trying to find the game(s) they wanted to buy through the search.

[ꉔꏂ꒐꒒ꇙ]

Originally posted by Haruspex:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

People report all kinds of weirdness during sales. I wouldn't be surprised if the search function slowed down or stopped working for some users

Just yesterday Steam was bugging out (idk if it was just for me or if it happened to others) I couldn't click the next page (if I checked out a thread with more than one page) I couldn't even check out my profile because I kept getting an error.

From an email that showed my awarded posts and when I clicked on it to take me to my post, it took me to the thread my post was in but didn't take me straight to my actual post.

Started working after a couple mins or so. With a lot of people on here, that doesn't surprise me.

[Chika Ogiue]

Originally posted by ꉔꏂ꒐꒒ꇙ:

Just yesterday Steam was bugging out (idk if it was just for me or if it happened to others)

Yesterday was regular weekly maintenance. Of course, if Valve bothered to advertise this, you'd have known. But they seem to be above informing their customers of these simple matters.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

When has the search function been made unavailable during a sale?

It happened last time. A lot of people couldn't see their wishlist so they were trying to find the game(s) they wanted to buy through the search.

Back during last years Summer sale? That was quite entertaining.