‘Move-To-Earn’ App STEPN Under DDoS Attacks After Upgrade
STEPN, a “move-to-earn” application on the Solana blockchain, was subjected to repeated distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks after a recent upgrade.
STEPN Suffers DDoS Attacks
Solana-based earn-to-move application STEPN has reported repeated denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks following the platform’s big anti-cheating upgrade.
On June 5, STEPN reported on Twitter that the platform had been subjected to multiple DDoS attacks, resulting in the need for recovery maintenance and subsequent performance issues.
According to the announcement, STEPN expected to secure and recover the servers in up to 12 hours, but as of the time of this writing, it had not provided an update in 24 hours.
“Our engineers are working hard to fix the problems. We will announce here once recovery is complete. Thank you so much for everyone’s patience,” STEPN stated.
The attacks occurred shortly after STEPN launched its anti-cheating system, known as “STEPN’s Model for Anti-Cheating,” or SMAC, on June 3. The system seeks to remove fake users from the platform and prevent fraudulent motion data on the STEPN app in order to obtain an unfair benefit 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.
STEPN’s SMAC Is Flagging Users as Bots
Shortly after implementing the upgrade, STEPN reported major platform issues, with SMAC erroneously flagging some real users as bots. Other difficulties included network issues caused by a “25 million DDOS attack,” as well as a temporary inability to detect bots on the platform.
“We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience caused to users. The anti-cheating update may seem small, but it is actually an important cornerstone of STEPN’s long-term development,” STEPN said.
STEPN’s native token, the Green Satoshi Token (GST), has not witnessed a significant drop in value over the past few days despite the platform’s DDoS issues. On the contrary, the GST is up over 8% in the last 24 hours and is currently trading at $1.02 at the time of writing. According to CoinMarketCap data, the token’s market capitalization is over $610 million.
STEPN, launched in December 2021, is a popular move-to-earn mobile nonfungible token (NFT) game that allows users to earn tokens by walking, jogging, or running outdoors while wearing NFT sneakers. The game features a dual token system consisting of both the GST token and the Governance Token (GMT).
The announcement comes as STEPN plans to restrict its platform’s accessibility for users in mainland China by mid-July.
STEPN, China and Crypto
Following an announcement on May 26, the linked tokens, Green Satoshi Token (GST) and STEPN token (GMT), plummeted by double digits.
STEPN, on the other hand, claimed to have “engaged in no business in mainland China since its establishment.” As a result, it appears that the decision to discontinue GPS services within China was made to prevent users from evading systems in order to access the application. STEPN noted that in order to comply with regulations,
“STEPN has always attached great importance to compliance obligations and always strictly abides by the relevant requirements of local regulatory agencies. We also remind users to beware of scams.”
