[2016-9-13]DDoS Extortionists Are Still Here,Now Threatening to Spread Ransomwar

[sirohige]

One year after the DDoS extortion campaigns appeared, a group, calling itself Armada Collective, continues scaring website owners with extortion email messages.

Latest known victim of such attack is Etienne Delport from Port Elizabeth, South Africa, the owner of DailyGammon, a website for playing Backgammon online.

A week ago, on September 5th, Delport posted on Twitter the email containing a ransom note, which she dah received from a group posing as Armada Collective.

http://virusguides.com/ddos-extortionists-still-now-threatening-spread-ransomware/

[1714048686]

1714048686

[1714048686]

1714048686

[Latreetim]

In the email, the group had written that unless Delport immediately paid 1 Bitcoin ($610) to the address show, she would face 10-300 Gbps DDoS attack the next day. The crooks also warned that if the DDoS had already started and the victim decides she wanted them to stop, the ransom would jump to 20 Bitcoin ($12,150).

Such attacks were first seen last year when a group named DD4BC started using them. This group, however, was arrested by Europol last winter but many other wannabes appeared following their steps. This includes Armada Collective, who`s most lucrative hit was against ProtonMail, when the email provides was forced to pay $6,000 to avoid a huge DDoS attack.

[Coin-Keeper]

I can understand why website owners feel like they are getting trapped in the corner.  But, if you pay it only encourages them to do it more and more!  This is not as simple a decision as those not running a site would think.