Pokemon Go servers crash after alleged DDoS attack by hacking collective PoodleCorp

The reported attack took place just hours after the popular game rolled out in 26 more countries in Europe.

PokemonGo #Offline #PoodleCorp

— PoodleCorp (@PoodleCorp) July 16, 2016

Trainers! We have been working to fix the #PokemonGO server issues. Thank you for your patience. We'll post an update soon.

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 16, 2016

The issues causing the server problems have been identified. Trainers should once again be able to search for Pokémon in the real world.

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) July 17, 2016

After the servers went down and word of the alleged attack got out, furious players took to social media to voice their anger and frustration.

Pokémon Go players looking to get their weekend fix of the popular augmented reality smartphone game were left frustrated on 16 July as a major outage hit the game's servers yet again. This time, however, a hacking collective PoodleCorp claimed responsibility for taking down Niantic's servers using an alleged DDoS attack.

The reported attack took place just hours after the mega-hit game rolled out in 26 more countries in Europe including Ireland, Greece, Sweden and Poland.

A DDoS attack, or Distributed Denial of Services, takes place when a malicious individual floods a server with too many requests than the company's server can handle in order to bring it down.

The hacker group took to Twitter to claim responsibility for the latest disruption.

Since its release earlier this month, the GPS-powered game has continued to struggle with server issues given its rapidly growing massive player base, delaying its global rollout.

DDoS attacks, which are not the same as hacks, have become an annoyingly frequent occurrence in the gaming industry.

Last month, Blizzard's servers suffered another outage due to a reported DDoS attack claimed by notorious hacking collective Lizard Squad, preventing users from accessing the company's games, following a massive attack that brought the server to its knees in April.

The group also targeted Sony and Microsoft on Christmas 2014 with a series of huge DDoS attacks that brought down PlayStation Network and Xbox Live during the holidays.