DDoS – Coping with Ticket Sales Panic

When the Colorado Rockies tickets went on sale, demand was so high the website crashed causing pandemic amongst desperate fans, stirring speculation of a DDoS attack.

You know the score – it’s the biggest event of the year or even of the century and tickets are like gold dust. Whether it’s Take That going back on tour, grabbing a Glastonbury ticket or catching Sir Ian McKellen play King Lear, getting online fast before the gig sells out is crucial. But unless the website is prepared, such a high volume of traffic can have the same impact as a DDoS attack, causing the site to crash. This is what they thought initially happened when Colorado Rockies fans logged on to buy tickets to see their team in the World Series.

DDoS attacks and legitimate traffic
When a website buckles under the weight of high volume traffic it can look like a malicious DDoS attack. But unless a site is prepared to handle such traffic, it can crash. The Colorado Rockies fans crashed the website after the ticketing system tired to handle a reported 8.5 million hits in 90 minutes. Only 500 of 60,000 tickets available were actually sold before the website went down and Rockies officials said the crash could have been a DDoS attack.

DDoS attack or genuine crash?
Legitimate crashes can happen when a website is deluged by traffic if it’s not prepared or has the proper safeguards in place. What looks like a DDoS attack can be a genuine crash. But it’s possible to prevent a crash by placing a device in-line to prevent a network outage, ensuring network resources are not overwhelmed by sudden floods of traffic. All businesses that sell online should safeguard their websites in such a way, not only from potential malicious DDoS attacks, but to ensure their shop door so to speak is never closed during peak hours. Whether it’s a major shop like Argos experiencing high demand for a must-have Christmas toy, or Madonna going on an exclusive tour, DDoS attacks or a traffic deluge can bring sales to a stand still.

Victims of a malicious DDoS attack
The Colorado Rockies however decided they were victims of a malicious DDoS attack, issuing the statement: “Thank you again for your patience tonight and for all our fans, again for their patience on what’s been a difficult day for them and for us also…Our Web site, I can tell you, and ultimately our fans and our organization, were the victim of an external malicious attack on our Web site that shut down the system that prevented our fans from being able to purchase their World Series tickets.”

The DDoS attack caused negative publicity and upset fans – they angrily began protesting in Denver when ticket sales were halted. Local radio stations poked fun at the Rockies management and thousands of people skipped from work in the hope to buy a seat for the once-in-a-lifetime game. All of which could have been prevented if the proper security steps had been taken.

Webscreen is an IT network security technology that is designed to protect Web servers and other network appliances from a distributed denial of service attack (DDoS). A DDoS attack is a deliberate attempt (malicious) to stop a Web site from working by flooding it with thousands or simultaneous connections. This is usually done for financial gain but can be for political or commercial reasons. Webscreen's unique Guarantee of Service (GoS) technology not only mitigates the impact of denial of service (DDoS) attacks but enables IT managers to maintain access for critical users and priority customers during any high level network activity period. Including a range of network optimisation and monitoring tools, Webscreen helps deliver maximum performance from network infrastructure resources. Find out more, contact Webscreen call 0870 3890022.