[ISN] Hackers rake it in with crash attacks

[InfoSec News]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/info-tech/mg18725125.900

13 August 2005 
New Scientist Print Edition. 

CYBERCRIMINALS are making a mint bringing e-commerce firms to a 
standstill with distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), 
according to the UK's National Criminal Intelligence Service.

In a report issued on 3 August, called the 2005 UK Threat Assessment
www.ncis.co.uk/ukta.asp the NCIS details cases from 2004 in which a
gang based in Russia used a botnet, a network of virus-infected
computers, to flood several online gambling websites with useless
data, so they couldn't trade with their users.

The extortionists' botnet had a total bandwidth of 3 to 4 gigabits per
second, exposing the firms' servers to the equivalent of 200,000
emails per second. "The attacks were soon followed by an extortion
demand, often for no more than $5000," says the NCIS. "As some
companies were losing £100,000 an hour while under attack, many chose
to pay up."

Issue 2512 of New Scientist magazine, 13 August 2005, page 27