Heroes of Newerth recovering from ongoing hacker activity

S2 Games has explained that a series of recent Heroes of Newerth outages were caused by a group of hackers.

Replying to Ripten's queries, S2 identified a group of English and Croatian hackers as the culprits.

The group, alleged to sell hacks for shooters as well as running scams and posting racist and inflammatory messages shifting the blame for the Heroes of Newerth attacks, discovered an exploit allowing them bring the game's servers down.

When banned, the group is said to have taken out new accounts with false or stolen credit card details, before giving up and launching a fresh campaign of DDOS attacks.

The attacks are said to be ongoing, although S2's recent preventative and defensive measures are proving better able to cope with the fallout.

"It is most definitely our responsibility to create systems to prevent these kinds of attacks," S2 admitted in a statement.

"However, the ferocity and length of these criminal activities is more than we have ever planned for. [Heroes of Newerth] ran smoothly and near flawlessly for a year of retail. We pride ourselves on our high standards of operation and this is very painful for us to endure."

Players who have had their gaming disrupted have been awarded in-game currency and other bonuses in thanks for their patience during the attacks.

Heroes of Newerth is a DotA clone and the third game from the small, independent S2 Games.