Solana's move-to-earn app, Stepn suffers another series of DDoS attacks after upgrade

The gaming platform was hit with up to 25 million DDoS attacks in the past few hours.

June 07, 2022 - Tom Peters

On June 5, Stepn, the popular move-to-earn app, has reported that it has suffered a series of denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. News of the attacks comes after the platform implemented a major anti-cheating upgrade.

A Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack is a form of cybercrime where an attacker overwhelms a server with useless internet traffic to restrict access to a site and its online services.

Stepn disclosed the attacks on Twitter around the same time multiple users reported experiencing ‘network congestion.’ It stated that its developers were working on the issue and promised it would be resolved within 12 hours.

The platform followed with another tweet, telling users, ‘We recommend you take some rest during the maintenance or otherwise the work-outs may not be recorded properly. Our engineers are working hard to fix the problems.’

Despite its promise, the platform has not followed up with any updates since its tweet.

The attack follows Stepn's recent upgrade to curb cheating among its users. On June 3, the app introduced 'Stepn’s Model for Anti-Cheating,' or SMAC, which aims to remove fake app users from the platform and clamp down on users who manipulate motion data on the app to gain unfair token rewards from the platform.

'SMAC system specifically targets the movement simulation by amending real walking/running data, thanks to our machine learning algorithm,’ the anti-cheating system's description reads.

Launched in December 2021, Stepn was one of the first platforms to introduce the ‘move-to-earn’ concept. It described itself as a lifestyle app that encouraged healthy living by rewarding users with cryptocurrencies for walking or running.

Earlier this year, the platform had reported two different DDoS attacks in April and May, believing attackers were trying to cripple it by sending millions of DDoS attacks.

Apart from trying to rid of cheating and bots, Stepn is also working towards implementing restrictions to support to users in mainland China by July.

Photo: Stepn