CastleCops.com Hit With Reputation-Based Attacks

An anonymous reader writes "The all-volunteer based online fraud fighting group CastleCops.com is currently the target of ongoing reputation-based attacks in which criminals use phished PayPal accounts to donate thousands of dollars to CastleCops from dozens of victims. This attack appears to be in response to a recent series of failed denial-of-service attacks against the CastleCops, Web site. From the story: 'A few donations were for as little as $1, while other fake donations ranged as high as $2,800. To the victims of the stolen PayPal accounts, it looks as if CastleCops is the one stealing their money, when in reality, it's the attackers. Also, the fraudulent activity seeks to ruin their relationship with PayPal.' In a comment left on Washingtonpost.com's Security Fix blog, CastleCops co-founder Paul Laudanksi says while the group's site remains under a heavy DDoS attack, it is currently down due to a hardware failure, not the attack itself."

Comments

Re:Hobby or business?

[gravos]

How about this: Paypal needs to start treating their customer service situation more like a business and less like a hobby.

Re:It's ironic...

[Billosaur]

Agreed -- to a point. Phishing is like the Internet equivalent of mugging, in that your money is taken involuntarily, but the fact is, you click the link that enables the phisher to get your cash. People have to be accountable for their own actions. I would give them full refunds, but then if I was PayPal I would flag their accounts and scrutinize every transaction from there on out for at least a year to make sure they didn't repeat the mistake. Maybe after their payments continue to be delayed by the extra processing, the users will think twice before clicking any link. And if they don't, and get bagged again, automatically shut down their account.