NTP DDoS attack takes down League of Legends game servers

The network time protocol is an protocol which allows servers to request the network time from an specific server. In this case, Schneier explains how the NTP DDoS attack is used on taking down gaming networks like the League of Legends.

Q4 has started with a lot of bugs

A lot of League Of Legends users are complaining about network problems while they try to play a League of Legends match. League of Legends shut down the ranked matching system multiple times in the last days.
The NTP method first began to appear late last year. To bring down a server such as one running "League of Legends," the attackers trick NTP servers into thinking they've been queried by the "League of Legends" server.
The NTP servers, thinking they're responding to a legitimate query, message the "League of Legends" server, overloading it with as many as 100 gigabits per second (Gbps). That's large even for a DDoS attack.
In this way, one small request to an NTP server can generate an enormous response capable of taking down even high-capacity websites.