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Hacking Group Is Charging German Companies $275 For 'DDoS Tests' (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the double-whammy dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "A group calling itself XMR Squad has spent all last week launching DDoS attacks against German businesses and then contacting the same companies to inform them they had to pay $275 for 'testing their DDoS protection systems,' reports Bleeping Computer. Attacks were reported against DHL, Hermes, AldiTalk, Freenet, Snipes.com, the State Bureau of Investigation Lower Saxony, and the website of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The attack against DHL Germany was particularly effective as it shut down the company's business customer portal and all APIs, prompting eBay Germany to issue an alert regarding possible issues with packages sent via DHL. While the group advertised on Twitter that their location was in Russia, a German reporter who spoke with the group via telephone said "the caller had a slight accent, but spoke perfect German." Following the attention they got in Germany after the attacks, the group had its website and Twitter account taken down. Many mocked the group for failing to extract any payments from their targets. DDoS extortionists have been particularly active in Germany, among any other countries. Previously, groups named Stealth Ravens and Kadyrovtsy have also extorted German companies, using the same tactics perfected by groups like DD4BC and Armada Collective.

29 comments

  1. sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want somet by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want something bad to happen.

  2. Mafia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It would be terrible if something bad were to happen, OK??

  3. they are screwed now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

    Woah did they ever pick the wrong fight! You do NOT want to mess with the State of North Rhine-Westphalia!

    1. Re:they are screwed now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At least it wasn't from those crazy loose cannons from the Duchy of Grand Fenwick. NEVER pick a fight with them.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared

  4. Doing it wrong! by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    What you should be doing is actually selling a DDoS protection service and then have an IoT botnet that attacks targets that don't use your service! Do these idiots know nothing of capitalism? ;)

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    1. Re: Doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      thats what i was thinking it was at first.

    2. Re:Doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bah. That's what everyone else is doing. They are atttempting a disruptive tactic.

    3. Re:Doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's very brave.

    4. Re:Doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. I could see this thing maximizing worldwide synergy under dynamic new paradigms. Time for a GoFundMe?

    5. Re:Doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, there are tried and proven techniques that work in other industries that they could adapt - say a freemium model where you can opt out from the "service" for free, but which expires after some time has gone. Then, if this re-opting is too tiresome you can buy a bot to do it for you.

    6. Re:Doing it wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I understand this is how city fire departments were actually invented. In ancient Rome one paid the fire-department for fire protection on a house-by-house basis. And if you didn't... well then... there might be a fire.

  5. Fighting from a Different Angle? by Neuronwelder · · Score: 0

    But shouldn't this be the job of the Internet Backbone? Maybe they can be assigned a personal Internet backbone emergency phone number (And extension!!) to cut off and track DDoS attacks at a company, or web page. The Backbone can have anything from call backs to working out some code to verify who is truly being attacked. Please excuse my ignorance. I don't have any mastery of the Web,

    1. Re:Fighting from a Different Angle? by ls671 · · Score: 1

      The Internet Backbone is just a set of tubes. Don't pray for what you are suggesting please.

      whoosh ;-)

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
  6. Re: sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No it doesn't. They DDoSed first then asked for payment.
    The mob at least gives you a chance to buy out of getting attacked first.
    These DDoS kids are getting dumber by the day.

  7. Re:sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want so by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want something bad to happen.

    At $275 a crack? Sounds like Skript Kiddies.

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  8. Ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    We need to get rid of Bitcoin or any other virtual currencies if we don't then online hacks will continue.

    1. Re:Ok by ls671 · · Score: 1

      We need to get rid of Bitcoin or any other virtual currencies if we don't then online hacks will continue.

      We need to get rid of all currencies if we don't then online hacks will continue.

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    2. Re: Ok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we need to get rid of all our stuff cause some one might take it.

      damn murders ill show them *puts shotgun to head and pulls!*

  9. Re:sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it works 1000 times, it sounds like three times my salary.

  10. Re:sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want so by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 1

    If it works 1000 times, it sounds like three times my salary.

    I'm sorry, maybe work on your LinkedIn profile...

    However, what makes you think it will "work" 1000 times? It's a lame DDoS attack aimed at some very large companies. Did you read the article?

    Following ridicule from fellow hackers, who made fun of the group for failing to understand how a DDoS extortion works, the group closed their Twitter account earlier today.

    ...and...

    The attention they got wasn't the one they expected, as their hosting provider took down their website, located at xmr-squad.biz.

    Lamers.

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    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  11. Re: sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Plus, the mob takes cash... any form of online or postal payment these idiots take would enable police to find them.

  12. scriptkidies by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If they still don't know they are very easy to get caught doing ddos (botnet or not), means they are not all to smart.

  13. Isn't this like thowing brick at windows... by squash_me_quickly · · Score: 1

    and then trying to charge the business owners for service like "penetration testing", "quality assurance", or "theft prevention".

    The "real world" version is ridiculous to 100% of the world, even the criminals.

    Why is there any doubt about the illegality of the "on-line" version?

    1. Re:Isn't this like thowing brick at windows... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lawyers in Germany get away with this sort of thing all the time, and hardly anyone bats an eyelid. They basically scour the internet for websites in Germany which don't have an Impressum (i.e. a page with the name, address, various other details of the owner) and then track them down and send them a bill for letting them know they are violating the law. The way torrenters are targetted in Germany also works on the same principle.

    2. Re: Isn't this like thowing brick at windows... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're mixing up things. German laws require you to have an impressum page and proper whois data for your domain, and this law can be abused because our politicans are idiots. There is no law stating that your servers should be DDoS immune, which implies that these script kiddies have shit for brains, because according to german law they commited at least two crimes: Computersabotage and eventually Erpressung.

    3. Re:Isn't this like thowing brick at windows... by lastman71 · · Score: 1

      They basically scour the internet for websites in Germany which don't have an Impressum (i.e. a page with the name, address, various other details of the owner) and then track them down and send them a bill for letting them know they are violating the law.

      "Thank you very much for your advise. Unfortunately, we are already contacted 10 minutes ago, for the same thing by someone else, so we are paying them instead of you ... "

      And also I expect there is no legal obbligation for paying non requested service...

  14. Re:sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bingo. They are.

  15. Re: sounds like the mob pay up if you don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah. Just like those crypto malware distributors that always get caught.

    Dumbfuck.

  16. Remember the good old days? by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    Remember the good old days when anyone could run a free ddos test just by getting slashdotted?

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