World Cup DDoS blackmail hacker sentenced to jail

A man accused of extorting money from online gambling websites during the run-up to the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa, a computer security firm reported Thursday. Sophos reported that a court in Düsseldorf, Germany found the Frankfurt man to have blackmailed three online betting sites and attempted to extort from three others. It said that the man was sentenced to two years and 10 months in prison, and was ordered to pay up to 350,000 Euros ($504,000) in damages to the affected firms. The court found he threatened the sites with distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks which could have knocked them offline, Sophos said, quoting German media reports. Citing German media reports, Sophos said the blackmailer hired a botnet for $65 per day and told the betting firms that he would make their websites unavailable in July 2010, the month of the World Cup, if they did not pay him 2,500 Euros ($3,700). When three of the sites refused to pay any money, the man reduced the ransom to 1,000 Euros. "This isn't the first time, by any means, that denial-of-service attacks have been used to blackmail online gambling websites in the run-up to a major sporting event. For instance, in 2006 a Russian gang who were said to have extorted $4 million from British bookmakers were sentenced to jail," Sophos said. Yet, it said more and more firms that rely on Internet visitors for their revenue face a potential impact that can be caused by a denial-of-service attack. "It's sadly no surprise, therefore, that some cybercriminals will see it as a way to make money," it said. — TJD, GMA News