Indie game storefront itch.io reportedly suffers multiple DDoS attacks just one week after Steam

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Itch.io, a website for buying and selling video games, experienced a DDoS attack late last night. This follows a similar large-scale attack that affected Steam, Riot Games, and other gaming sites just last week. Itch.io explained on BlueSky that their hosting provider responded to the attack by temporarily shutting down the site. The site was brought back online after several hours, but has reportedly been under attack again recently.

PC storefront itch.io suffers a DDoS attack one week after Steam and other gaming services

Following last week’s attack on Steam, many believe a botnet called AISURU is to blame, as its activity significantly increased around the time of the incident. While the itch.io team hasn’t confirmed the source, it’s currently just speculation. Regardless of who was responsible, it’s becoming clear that simply shutting down the site after an attack may not be an effective long-term solution as these events happen more frequently.

It’s become such a frequent issue that one user took the initiative to build an uptime tracker and shared it on a Reddit post discussing the attack. This user, known as KenNL, sells content on itch.io and expressed frustration with how the site is handling the situation. They pointed out that itch.io often blames its hosting provider instead of explaining how it will improve its defenses. KenNL is referring to itch.io’s tendency to deflect responsibility by blaming its host for the ongoing problems.

Recently, itch.io has faced several challenges, beyond just dealing with attacks that have taken the site offline. A few months ago, both itch.io and Steam were criticized for hosting adult content, which led to many games being removed or hidden. On top of that, itch.io has been struggling with payment issues for its creators. While the popular game Vintage Story publicly voiced their concerns, our conversations with other creators revealed this is a much bigger and more common problem than many realize.

We’re still waiting to see what’s going on with itch.io. As of right now, the site is accessible, but the team hasn’t said anything publicly about this second outage in just 24 hours. This makes it harder to recommend itch.io as a dependable platform for independent game sales. However, since Steam is also experiencing issues, it’s difficult to suggest any clear alternative.

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2025-10-17 00:02