T1 LoL slams Riot after 6 months of DDoS attacks with no solution

T1’s League of Legends team has been plagued by DDoS attacks for several months, with the team having to entirely change the way they practice and being forced to cancel their streams. Now, T1 has gone as far as calling out Riot directly and demanding action.

This announcement comes with the news that T1 is being forced to cancel its League of Legends streams across the board. Faker started streaming for the first time since coming back from MSI and was immediately hit with disconnects and connection issues as a result of DDoS attacks.

“It is with deep frustration that we must announce the indefinite suspension of our players’ streams due to the ongoing DDoS attacks,” T1’s statement says.

“For nearly six months, these attacks have persisted, and we hoped that Riot Korea and Riot Games would devise a long-term solution to allow our players and other affected teams to resume normal training schedules. Regrettably, this has not yet occurred.”

T1 did acknowledge Riot’s efforts to implement countermeasures for DDoS attacks at their HQ while the team was abroad competing at MSI 2024, but that only worked for their players playing from their HQ.

Lee Aiksoon/Riot Games

“The issue has shifted, with the accounts of players playing alongside our team now being targeted, disrupting our live streamed SoloQ sessions. This situation forces us to pause our streams, resulting in significant financial implications for our organization.”

Considering how popular T1’s players are (and how expensive it is to keep them on the team), not being able to put those players in front of the fans is frustrating for the organization.

Additionally, this makes it so that players who are just trying to practice in solo queue are affected just for being in matches with or against T1 players.

“The primary concern is for Riot Korea and Riot Games to fulfill their responsibilities and stop these attacks. The issue is beyond the control of T1 or our ownership group.”

T1 would go on to specify that the LCK isn’t responsible for these problems and that the onus lies with Riot. They also asked T1 fans not to take action against Riot as a result of the drama, claiming that they made the statement purely as a way to keep fans informed of what’s happening internally.

I asked Gumayusi about this very same issue at MSI, and he was concerned this would be an issue that would plague the team once T1 got back from China. He had this to say at the time:

“As far as I know, the DDoS issue in Korea hasn’t been resolved yet. We might be affected in both practice and streaming, and the DDoS issues should be solved as soon as possible.”

It’s important to bear in mind that these issues stem purely from a vulnerability in the South Korean league client and that other teams in other regions aren’t being affected.

Riot has been tight-lipped on the issue due to them not wanting to tip off the assailants as to the countermeasures they’re taking against them.

And, though the issue is still ongoing, it isn’t nearly as dire as when the LCK had to be postponed entirely due to DDoS attacks preventing the regular season from being playable.