Extortionists have targeted online bookmaker Blue Square with a child pornography smear campaign.
The company received an email October 25 demanding 7,000 euros be transferred to an account, which was followed by a five-hour distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. A Blue Square employee received a telephone call October 26 wherein the blackmailers upped the ante.
The BBC reported that a man with an Eastern European accent threatened to send out emails bearing child pornography in the company’s name, unless the money was paid within two days.
“This is a new twist on the standard distributed denial of service attack,” Ed Pownall, communications officer at Blue Square, told BBC News.
“Because we can now repel their online attacks so quickly this is obviously an attempt to ramp up the intimidation. It is just revolting.
“We are a quoted company – how could we ever explain to shareholders we had paid out to extortionists? Not that we would ever consider paying blackmailers in any circumstances.
“We have decided to go public so that if people do receive one of these e-mails they know it is not from us.”
Online bookmakers, who have seen DDoS attacks on the rise, recently, have developed technology to spot and stop the barrage of information requests associated with them before they hit servers. Many cut off inquiries to their Web site from the region where the attack originates, as Blue Square did in this case.
William Hill, another U.K.-based online bookmaker, also battled a DDoS attack this week.
In July, British and Russian authorities arrested three Russians believed to be responsible for blackmailing thousands of pounds from online sports bookmakers.
