Play for Ukraine gamifies cyberattacking Russia

Future. An online game titled Play for Ukraine allows people all over the world to wage cyberwarfare against Russia by taking down government-controlled websites. Created by Ukrainian developers, the game may demonstrate the effectiveness of crowdsourcing an “IT army” that transcends borders …and act as a reminder for governments around the world to shore up their cyber-defenses.

Multiplayer DDOS
A new game from a Ukrainian software company can turn anyone into a hacktivist.

• Play for Ukraine “crowdsources and gamifies” Dedicated Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on websites of the Russian government or state-backed media.
  • DDOS attacks essentially overwhelm a website’s server until the site can no longer function normally.
• To users, it’s a puzzle game designed in a way that, each time a player makes a move, they contribute to creating a DDOS on a web server.
• As of last week, the developers of the game said that 2,048 players helped attack 200 Russian websites.
• An ongoing list of sites the game has taken down can be found on the game’s Twitter account.

And to show that this game is being focused on its use for the digital battlefield, the game’s developers said, “our main goal is websites that serve the Russian army.”