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Gangs Extort Companies With DDoS Attacks

Posted by timothy on from the crisis-of-the-week dept.

Pcol writes "The Financial Times reports that gangs based in Eastern Europe have been launching attacks on corporate networks costing the companies millions of dollars in lost business and exposing them to blackmail. Sites have been asked to pay up to ensure they are free from Distributed Denial of Service attacks for a year. One detective reported, 'If the demand comes in for $40,000-50,000, compared to the losses they're suffering, there's an attraction for the companies to pay and hope it goes away. But there's nothing to say it will go away.'"

4 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Fine. Let them! by freeze128 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The gangs can *TRY* to extort money, but in the long run, it would be cheaper to hire consultants or better administrators. This will have the effect of IMPROVING security worldwide. Thanks European gangs!

    1. Re:Fine. Let them! by TheTomcat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What exactly would this consultant / administrative talent DO?

      You have 10,000 zombies firing packets at you, spoofed on random IPs, how do you stop this?

      We had to Akamize our stuff.. and that's extremely pricey (think 2+ salaries).

      S

  2. protection market by musikit · · Score: 5, Insightful

    funny thing is with the old mobsters paying protection money to mob A would stop mob B from doing the same.

    what's to stop another DDoS group from doing the same?

    as the movies teach never pay the protection money

  3. Anyone looking for work in security? by phorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For $50,000 a year, sounds like a decent wage for anyone who's currently unemployed. Why not just hire a good whitehat instead of caving into blackhat demands?