IC3 Warns of Email Extortion Campaigns Threatening DDoS Attacks; Says Online Industries Likely Target
The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has received an increasing number of complaints from businesses reporting extortion campaigns via email, an alert said Friday. Typically, a victim business will receive an email threatening Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks…
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to its website unless a ransom -- that varies in size, but is usually demanded in Bitcoin -- is paid, IC3 said. Victims that don’t pay the ransom receive a follow-up email threatening that the price of the ransom will increase if the victim doesn’t pay in a certain time frame, it said. Some businesses implemented DDoS mitigation services as a precaution, it said. Those that experienced a DDoS attack reported the attacks “consisted primarily of Simple [Service] Discovery Protocol (SSDP) and Network Time Protocol (NTP) reflection/amplification attacks, with an occasional SYN-flood and, more recently, [WordPress] XML-RPC reflection/amplification attack,” it said. The attacks often last one to two hours, “with 30 to 35 gigabytes as the physical limit,” it said. Based on information given to IC3, the FBI believes multiple individuals are involved in these extortion campaigns and believes the attacks will expand to online industries and other targeted sectors that are susceptible to financial loss if offline for a period of time, it said. IC3 recommends not opening emails or attachments from unknown individuals, not communicating with those who send threatening emails, and if an attack occurs, utilize DDoS mitigation services.