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FastMail falls over as web service extortionists widen attacks and up their prices

Posted on November 12, 2015 by Dissent

Although the DDoS attack and extortion demand made on ProtonMail was the first to draw a lot of media attention – possibly because ProtonMail paid the demand –  Hushmail, Runbox, Zoho, and VFEMail were also hit with DDoS attacks, seemingly by the hackers who call themselves the Armada Collective. Neomailbox was also hit, and now Iain Thompson reports that FastMail was hit, too:

FastMail has become the latest web services company to get taken down by distributed denial of service (DDoS) raiders who are trying to extort Bitcoins in exchange for internet access.

The company reports that its servers were down briefly on DDoS attack Sunday 8 November, after the people responsible contacted the company with a ransom demand, asking for 20 Bitcoin (worth around $7,500) to make the assaults go away. Another attack occurred on Monday.

“First of all, we would like to make one thing clear. We do not respond to extortion attempts, and we will not pay these criminals under any circumstances,” the firm said in a blog post.

Read more on The Register.

Graham Cluley had posted a copy of the extortion demand being made.

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1 thought on “FastMail falls over as web service extortionists widen attacks and up their prices”

  1. IA Eng says:
    November 12, 2015 at 8:36 am

    Paying this type of attack is ludicrous. It opens up a door for copy-cat style attacks to the same organization. Better yet, what happens when this bunch of crooks want more cash and they decide to hammer this site again, with a different name? There is No honor here – nothing says the crooks have to play by the good ol’ boy rules.

    Sure it probably was paid so the Feds can track the payment. You say….But it’s Bitcoins….. I say so what…. =X

    Its probably easier and cheaper to find a provider these organizations can ride on that offer some sort of DDoS protection. Worse case is they get another set of IP’s to use in case of an attack that aren’t used for any other purpose.

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