• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia
TechCybersecurity

Hackers Say They Were Behind Pokémon Go’s Weekend Outages

By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
David Meyer
David Meyer
Down Arrow Button Icon
July 18, 2016, 8:53 AM ET

The OurMine hacking team may be best known for embarrassing figures such as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, but now it is claiming another high-profile victim: Pokémon Go.

The hit game appears to have suffered two spates of outages over the weekend. A group calling itself PoodleCorp claimed responsibility for the first, on Saturday. It’s particularly hard to verify this one—not only does this group not have much of a track record, but the “attack” coincided with the release of Pokémon Go in 26 more countries.

The kind of attacks being referred to here are called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, where the hackers commandeer networks of computers to flood the target’s servers with connection requests until they freeze up.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

The effect is pretty similar to, say, hordes of users overwhelming the servers of a game whose makers didn’t anticipate the level of demand. And we already know that the Pokémon Go craze has led to instability in the system—in fact, server capacity issues are delaying the game’s Japanese launch.

Casting doubt on the claim that attacks were responsible for Saturday’s problems, the game’s maintainers tweeted early Sunday that they had figured out the cause of the “server problems.”

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

However, an unofficial Pokémon Go server status site shows there were intermittent but serious outages throughout Sunday. After the announcement of Pokémon Go‘s availability in Canada on Sunday, it was reported that the game’s systems were overloaded, leaving hopeful players struggling to register an account.

And that’s where OurMine may come in. This group has more of a track record, having previously hacked the social media accounts of high-profile tech execs, and it claimed responsibility for Sunday’s Pokémon Go attack on its website.

OurMine pitches itself as an “elite hacker group” that performs vulnerability assessment for companies—that is, they figure out where the flaws in companies’ defenses lie, then recommend how to fix them. “We have no bad intentions and only care about the security and privacy of your accounts and networks,” their website reads. A spokesperson for OurMine told Fortune that the group does not request money from its targets.

Before Sunday’s “attack” began, OurMine said it would make Pokémon Go inaccessible to its users until the proprietors (former Google subsidiary Niantic Labs and the Nintendo-backed Pokémon Company) contact OurMine “to teach them how to protect it!”

OurMine’s representative said it stopped its attack against the game’s servers on Monday morning. Will the group resume the attack? “We don’t know, but I think no,” the spokesperson said.

For more on the game, watch:

The representative said neither Niantic nor the Pokémon Co. had “yet” been in touch to take OurMine up on its offer of a security lesson. The rep added that it was not known whether an attack was really responsible for the earlier outages on the weekend, “but I think it wasn’t PoodleCorp, because the servers were down before their tweet.”

Fortune has asked the Pokémon Co. for its take on the weekend’s outages, but had not heard back at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, shaky servers aren’t the only security-related worry for Pokémon Go fans. It also emerged last week that a malicious app claiming to be associated with the game had made its way into the Google Play store.

About the Author
By David Meyer
LinkedIn icon
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • Future 50
  • World’s Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Diversity And Inclusion
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

AIAnduril
Anduril founder Palmer Luckey wants to arm the U.S.’s allies. Could his insistence on deferring to Washington scare them off?
By Nicholas GordonMarch 28, 2026
6 hours ago
AIMedia
Actors union is bargaining for ‘Tilly tax’ on AI film characters
By Victor Swezey and BloombergMarch 28, 2026
10 hours ago
rick
AIEntrepreneurship
Meet a 29-year-old blue-collar founder who used AI to triple his revenue in 3 years
By Nick LichtenbergMarch 28, 2026
16 hours ago
AIElon Musk
Elon Musk’s companies, once welcomed in Baltimore with open arms, are now getting stiff-armed—or sued
By Jessica MathewsMarch 28, 2026
16 hours ago
tomas
CommentaryColleges and Universities
Former Trump advisor: ‘Conservatives’ risk killing America’s golden goose by taxing university research
By Tomas J. PhilipsonMarch 28, 2026
16 hours ago
Big TechElon Musk
Elon Musk’s name alone is turning Nashville residents against his tunnel project, survey shows
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezMarch 28, 2026
17 hours ago

Most Popular

Success
Meetings are not work, says Southwest Airlines CEO—and he’s taking action by blocking his calendar every afternoon from Wednesday to Friday 
By Fortune EditorsMarch 27, 2026
2 days ago
Economy
U.S. debt suddenly draws weaker demand as $10 trillion must be rolled over this year amid Iran war. 'The bond market remains undefeated'
By Fortune EditorsMarch 28, 2026
10 hours ago
Economy
The stay-at-home boyfriend is now an economic trend as more women than men go to work
By Fortune EditorsMarch 28, 2026
15 hours ago
Personal Finance
Current price of gold as of March 27, 2026
By Fortune EditorsMarch 27, 2026
2 days ago
Europe
413,793 KitKat bars stolen: 'Whilst we appreciate the criminals’ exceptional taste, the fact remains that cargo theft is an escalating issue'
By Fortune EditorsMarch 28, 2026
7 hours ago
AI
Meet a 29-year-old blue-collar founder who used AI to triple his revenue in 3 years
By Fortune EditorsMarch 28, 2026
16 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.