Two Polish men were arrested at Heathrow Airport earlier this week in
connection with an alleged DDoS extortion attack on a Manchester-based
business, news sources have reported.
Details are light but it is known that a website connected to the
business was brought down during the attack, which happened at an
unspecified time before the 7 August arrests.
"This investigation centres on an allegation that the on-line company
was blackmailed,” said Detective Inspector Chris Mossop, of Greater
Manchester Police’s Serious Crime Division
"As part of this blackmail attempt, one of the company's websites was made temporarily unavailable by the offenders,” he added.
"Denial of service attacks have become increasingly common offences
in recent years and can have a devastating effect on the victim's
on-line business or presence.”
The investigation continued in several countries, including the UK, the US and Poland, police said.
Although such cases rarely come to light, cyber-extortion has
flourished in the last decade. In almost every case, DDoS is the weapon
of choice. These days, small and medium-size businesses are the usual
target because they are far less likely to have DDoS mitigation in place
to defend themselves.
The other less common technique involves attackers stealing data and
threatening to release it unless a ransom is paid. An example of this
type of attack came to light last year when a Belgian bank was
blackmailed by hackers.
Last December, hackers tried to extort $4,000 AUS (£2,600) from a
medical centre in Australia after breaching its network and encrypting
its customer database.
A recent survey suggested that one in five UK businesses had been affected by DDoS attacks during 2012.
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