Blizzard President Mike Ybarra says Overwatch 2 is “experiencing a mass DDoS attack” on its servers, preventing hundreds of users from joining the game’s launch (Mariella Moon/Engadget)

Mariella Moon / Engadget:
Snap makes Snapchat for Web available to all users globally, including support for video calls, releases iOS 16 lock screen widgets, and more  —  Snapchat’s messaging and video chat features first made their way to browsers back in July, but only in select markets and for Snapchat+ subscribers.

Andy Chalk / PC Gamer:
Blizzard will require Overwatch 2 and Modern Warfare 2 players to use SMS Protect, a 2FA system, to combat toxicity, but won’t accept prepaid and VOIP numbers  —  Just like Overwatch 2, you’ll need to attach a phone number to your Battle.net account to play Modern Warfare 2—and prepaid phones aren’t allowed.

Mariella Moon / Engadget:
Google launches News Showcase in France, partners with 65+ publishers representing 130+ outlets, and will offer “a limited amount” of paywalled content for free  —  Google has launched News Showcase in France, and it has teamed up with over 65 publishers representing over 130 publications …

Bill Toulas / BleepingComputer:
Russia’s second-largest bank, VTB, is hit with a large DDoS attack causing its apps and website to go offline; “IT Army of Ukraine” claims credit for the attack  —  Russia’s second-largest financial institution VTB Bank says it is facing the worse cyberattack in its history …

Bloomberg:
NetEase and Blizzard plan to end their 14-year partnership after January 2023, leaving Chinese players’ access to games like Diablo and Overwatch in question  —  NetEase Inc. and Blizzard Entertainment Inc. plan to end their 14-year partnership after January, depriving the Chinese firm …

Rasbora.dev:
A developer who ran a DDoS-for-hire “empire” criticizes Cloudflare for protecting the DDoS industry while selling services to mitigate such attacks  —  Today CloudFlare is in the spotlight for their decision to revoke access to a website behind their network …