What Happens When Your ARK Server Is Attacked

Whether you run ARK: Survival Evolved or ARK: Survival Ascended, your server is protected by VibeSHIELD, the anycast DDoS protection network built into every VibeGAMES server. It filters attack traffic before it reaches your server and asks nothing of you. This article explains what is filtered for ARK, what players notice and what you should do during an attack.

1What VibeSHIELD Does for Your ARK Server

• A UDP game filter protects the game port UDP 7777. It drops packets that do not match real ARK traffic.
• For Survival Evolved, the same filter also covers the raw UDP port 7778.
• An A2S query cache on the Steam query port 27015 answers server-list queries at the edge, so query floods never reach the server.
• Filtering happens at the VibeSHIELD point of presence nearest to the source of the traffic. Only clean traffic continues to your server.
• The profile is applied automatically to both ARK games. There is nothing to configure.

2What Players Notice

• In most attacks nothing. Taming and raiding continue.
• During a very large attack a few seconds of higher ping or packet loss can occur while the filtering ramps up.
• If your server goes unreachable, the attack is probably not the cause. ARK is heavy on memory, so check the console in the game panel first. A crash, running out of memory, a mod problem or a wrong port are the usual reasons.

3Where to See the Attack

• Open the website dashboard and click your ARK server.
• Go to the DDoS protection tab. It is in the website dashboard at vibegames.com, not in the game panel at game.vibegames.com where the console and files live.
• Status reads Active. Attack status reads Not under attack or Under attack.
• The Attack history table lists the attacks of the last 30 days with their ID, peak size in Mbps or Gbps, start time and stop time.
• Expand a row for a traffic chart over time, the source countries, source networks (ASN), source ports, destination ports, protocol, TTL and packet sizes.

4The Email You Receive

• When an attack targets your server's port, the email address on your account receives a message with the subject DDoS attack detected on your server <ip>.
• It says VibeSHIELD is filtering the traffic and that no action is needed.
• Several servers on a node share one IP address, each on its own port. The attack is attributed to your server by the attacked port.

5What to Do

• Nothing is required for the attack itself.
• Do not share your server IP in response to threats, and never pay anyone who claims they can stop an attack.
• Do not change the game port or query port. It does not help against attacks and is not needed.
• Do not ask for a move to another location. Every location is behind VibeSHIELD.
• If players report problems during an attack, open a ticket and include the attack ID from the history table.

Good to Know

• Survival Evolved has one extra port. The raw UDP port 7778 is filtered along with 7777, so both ports a Survival Evolved client uses are covered.
• Destination ports are in the breakdown. Expand an attack to see which of your ports was targeted.
• Read more. The article on how VibeSHIELD protects your game server explains the network in detail.