What to do when you’re booted offline while gaming — SecurityMadeSimple

What to do when you’re booted offline while gaming

Getting “booted” is a common term for someone kicking you off an online game by attacking your internet connection. It is usually done through at technique called Distributed denial of service (DDOS), which is where someone sends traffic to your machine via your IP address. The traffic can overload the machine, causing you to lag and eventually disconnect. It can get to the point where it damages the gaming system itself and you won’t be able to use it anymore. Some people do this just to be an annoyance to other people, especially streamers who have a lot of followers. But it can happen to almost anyone and this article highlights some of things you can do to stop it and who you can report these people to so that they can’t go on doing this to other people.

Don’t add strangers to your party

Whatever gaming console you use, if you make a party chat to play with yours boys, make it private and invite the people you want to the party. It only takes a few minutes of someone being in your party for them to get your IP address and once they have that they can start attacking your console. I know some people personally who have said they got hacked shortly after being in a party with someone they didn’t know, one person was bold enough to join a party I was in a few days later, on that guy’s account and threaten to do the same thing to us. Most consoles make it easy to make your parties private and if someone does join your public party, don’t feel bad for kicking them out.

Use a VPN or a Proxy Server

Unfortunately it’s possible for people to get your IP address even if they don’t join your party. For example there are several websites that allow you to enter a gaming ID and get that user’s IP address. Using a VPN or Proxy server, is a good way to prevent people from obtaining your IP address by making your console go through another server before connecting to anything on the internet. That way if someone tries to get your IP address, they will get the IP address of the proxy server, not your IP address.

Reset your Router or contact your ISP

If someone already has your IP address, the previous steps won’t be able to help you. If it’s been going on for a while and you’re confident that it’s not standard internet problems, your best bet is to unplug your router and wait a few hours or a few days, you can try unplugging it as you sleep and try it again in the morning. In some situations this will result in you getting assigned a new IP address and now that DDOS won’t be targeting your console anymore. You can also contact your Internet Service Provider and have them assign you a new IP address, which would have the same affect.

Report them

If you know who is booting you off the game, you and your friends need to report them. As someone that plays video games, this is extremely annoying, and they should be taken off the game for doing that to someone. Firstly, you and your friends should report them to owner of the console that you’re playing on. For example, if it’s a ps4, contact PlayStation support and give them that person’s user ID. Also, you can report them to the IC3.gov website. This is the Internet Crime Complaint FBI website and they can help track down people that are doing this and get them handled. If it goes beyond a DDOS attack and they are harassing you, stole money from your account or made threats against you, then you can go avoid and get the local police involved.

Recap

Keep your online parties for people that you or your friends know, adding people to your party makes it easier for them to grab your IP address. If you want to hide your IP address, you can use a VPN or proxy server, which will hide your IP address and still allow you to access everything online. If you’re already getting DDOS’ed you can try resetting your IP address by unplugging your router for an extended period or you contact your Internet Service Provider to have it changed. Lastly, you want to report whoever is doing this. If they do it to you, they will do it to someone else and no one wants to deal with that when they are supposed to be on the game having fun.

*This is a YouTuber I follow who recently experienced this and he gives you a breakdown of what happened from his point of view. (There may be mild profanity)