Chess.com, a popular online platform for the game, found itself in the crosshairs of a hacker’s onslaught. The site was subjected to a series of DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks, primarily between July 22 and 27. These attacks, orchestrated by “malicious hackers,” caused intermittent downtime throughout the week.

However, the cyber onslaught was successfully repelled, thanks to the combined efforts of Chess.com and IT company Cloudflare. A tweet from Chess.com on July 27 confirmed the successful defense against the attacks, expressing gratitude to Cloudflare for their assistance in restoring the site’s operations. This successful defense was crucial, especially considering the recent start of the highly anticipated PogChamps 5 event.

DDoS attacks are a common form of cyber warfare, where the attacker overwhelms the server with a flood of traffic, causing it to crash intentionally. Chess.com was the latest victim of this tactic, but the intervention of Cloudflare’s CEO, Matthew Prince, and his team played a pivotal role in mitigating the attacks and keeping the chess servers online.

The timing of these attacks was critical, as they occurred just before the start of the PogChamps Five event, which runs from July 27 to August 18, live from Los Angeles, California. The matches will be broadcast on Chess.com’s YouTube and Twitch channels, as well as on the main website.

Popular streamer Ludwig, the host of the event, will also be streaming PogChamps Five on his YouTube channel. The event features streamers like Tyler1, xQc, Sykkuno, QTCinderella, and many more.

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