During the FIFA World Cup semifinals, kooks the globe found themselves unable to access the streaming service FuboTV, which suffered a “criminal cyber attack” that prevented customers from watching high-stakes soccer matches.
The disruption left fans unable to watch an intense match between France and Belgium, as well as the semifinal game between Croatia and England.
FuboTV, the popular streaming service for sports fans, received reports of disruptions Friday morning, just as the games were set to begin. Users were met with error messages without explanation.
In a statement released that day, FuboTV confirmed that a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack had caused the disruption. A DDoS attack is a malicious cyber attack that overwhelms a website or service with huge amounts of traffic, clogging the network and preventing users from accessing the website.
FuboTV stated that they “anti-DDoS infrastructure” had been deployed to identify the malicious traffic and mitigate the attack. However, the service had trouble restoring normal operations, forcing them to take the site down temporarily to prevent further disruption.
The company assured customers that the failure was not related to any personal data or account information, and said that no such information had been compromised.
Some customers may have been left in the lurch with no way to watch the games, but FuboTV’s prompt response to the incident earned kudos from some commentators.
The disruption was a stark reminder of how vulnerable digital platforms can be to malicious attacks, and the need for providers to prioritize security. FuboTV is only the latest example of a major service that has been forced to confront such an attack.
Fortunately, the incident did not affect the outcomes of the matches, with France and Croatia emerging victorious over Belgium and England, respectively. Fans of soccer and streaming services will be relieved that the World Cup semifinals were not further derailed by the criminal cyber attack.