What a surprise, with the Super Bowl just two days away: News that organized crime gangs are trying to shake down online betting sites by threatening a heavy data attack unless those sites pay for "protection."
"These are not groups of amateur hackers ? great deals of money are changing hands," a spokesman for the National Hi-Tech Crime Unit in Great Britain told Reuters. "These are for-profit crimes and all intelligence suggests that organized crime is involved."
The NHTCU said they're probing a number of threats and actual attacks in Great Britain, but Reuters said other security experts believe sites based in the Caribbean and the European continent were also targeted.
"We were first targeted in September," said Alistair Assheton, managing director of gambling Website owners VIP Management Services in Curacao, "and have been under intermittent attack ever since."
Law enforcement has said of late that crime gangs have adapted the denial-of-service attack style to extort businesses, Reuters said, adding the belief for now is that the gangs are largely based in Eastern Europe and Russia, where the cybercrime laws are relatively weak and savvy programmers legion.
Assheton told Reuters earlier this week the latest threat against his sites demanded $30,000 wired by Western Union to the mailer's bank account or risk taking a hit. "They essentially said pay up or you will go down for the Super Bowl," he told the news wire.
One e-mail obtained by Reuters demanded $15,000 payment for six months' protection, but said if the recipients wait to make deals until the attacks begin, the prices will rise to $25,000 for six months and the site staying down until the money is received.
