[ISN] FBI Investigating Cyber-extortion

[InfoSec News]

http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/fbi051004.cfm

May 10, 2004 
WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW

The FBI is investigating the claims of a Kentucky business owner who
appears to have been the target of a cyber-extortion, according to the
Associated Press.

Jay Broder, the owner of CSI Mid-South, also known as Card Solutions
International, claimed his company's Web site (authorizeit.com) went
down for about a week after he refused to pay $10,000 to the sender of
the email extortion threat. The email threatened to cripple the site
if the money was not sent. Broder said in the report that he thought
the threats were idle and believed the emails to be spam. He said he
is not aware of any reason why he would be targeted.

The alleged attack, unleashed a few hours after Broder received a
second threatening email, was a distributed denial of service attack
(DDoS), an assault that overloads a system with a flood of incoming
messages forcing it to shut down.

According to the Courier-Journal, CSI Mid-South's Web site is hosted
with Boston-based Web hosting provider Hosting.com (hosting.com), who
did not return requests for comment. Broder said the attacks stopped
when he switched Web hosting providers and got a new IP address.

Card Solutions International processes credit card payments online.