[ISN] Hackers blackmail milliondollar site

[InfoSec News]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/cd05a42c-87c6-11da-8762-0000779e2340.html

By James Fontanella in London 
January 18 2006

The FBI is investigating the hijacking of milliondollar-homepage.com -
the website that earned $1m (£566,000) for its British creator Alex
Tew by hosting micro-advertisements - by hackers who demanded a ransom
to restore the site.
 
Mr Tew was sent a demand for $50,000 by e-mail by a hacker, believed
to be Russian. When he refused, the website crashed.

The e-mail, which was made available exclusively to the Financial
Times, read: "Hello u website is under us atack to stop the DDoS send
us 50000$."

Graham Cluley, a senior technology consultant, said: "DDoS
(Distributed Denial of Service) attack is a common way to block
internet users accessing a site by flooding the website with traffic.

"In August 2005 a US teenager was sentenced to five years juvenile
detention for launching DDoS attacks against online sportswear
retailers costing the company over $1.5m."

Several gambling websites, as well as companies such as Microsoft,
Ebay, Yahoo and CNN have also been victims of such attacks.

Mr Tew first received a threat on January 7 from a body calling itself
The Dark Group, demanding $5,000.

He thought the blackmail was a hoax and took little notice.

However, on Friday, Russell Weiss, president of InfoRelay,the internet
server ofmilliondollarhomepage.com, told Mr Tew that the website was
experiencing very high traffic and there was a risk that it could
break down.

On Wednesday when Mr Tew sold the final 1000 pixels on his site for
$38,100 on Ebay, reaching his goal of earning $1m, the hackers
intensified their attack and hijacked the website.

The website should be up and running today after InfoRelay upgraded
the security system.