Tag Archives: authorities

Hackers threaten First Securities with DDoS attacks

TAIPEI, Taiwan — First Securities (?????) was blackmailed on Thursday by hackers who threatened to completely disable its trading system with DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks. The hackers asked the brokerage firm to pay 50 bitcoins (approximately NT$940,000), in an email that they sent to First Securities at around 10 a.m. on Thursday. Local newspaper Apple Daily cited an unnamed source as saying that a DDoS attack came at around 11 a.m., stopping all electronic trades. First Securities President Yeh Kuang-chang (???) confirmed that they received the blackmail email but stressed that the firm’s trading system was only slowed down but not disabled by the attacks as reported. The firm has activated a reserve system and, while a small number of investors were affected by the attacks, the system was not paralyzed, Yeh said. He said he believed the situation would be resolved by Friday. Yeh said the firm had reported the incident, which he said had caused no losses to the firm, to the authorities or to the investigation bureau. Yeh also stressed that while the firm had yet to ascertain the origin of the hackers, he had preliminary ruled out the possibility that Thursday’s DDoS attacks were related to the ATM heist aimed at its sister institution — First Commercial Bank — in July. ATMs at 41 First Bank branches were hacked in the incident, with over NT$80 million believed to have been stolen. Seventeen suspects from six countries have been identified in the heist, which involved an international crime ring. The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) issued a statement at 6 p.m. saying that First Securities suffered from an unknown online attack beginning at 10:50 a.m. and was not able to immediately recover its electronic trading system. The TWSE advised investors to use other forms of trading. TWSE Vice President Chien Lih-chung (???) said the TWSE had informed other securities firms and that no other firms had reported similar blackmail or system problems. Source: http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2016/09/23/479195/Hackers-threaten.htm

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Hackers threaten First Securities with DDoS attacks

Overwatch Servers Went Down After Alleged DDoS Attack

Infamous hacker group Lizard Squad is thought to be at it again, this time taking down Overwatch servers and leaving players unable to join and remain in a session. Over the past week, Blizzard has been experiencing some problems with Battle.net that have made it difficult for players to use the service as intended with games like Overwatch . Now, there’s word that these issues might have been caused by a DDoS attack launched by members of hacker group Lizard Squad. Some users are reporting that they are unable to log in to Battle.net. Others are able to enter, but find themselves kicked out of multiplayer matches in Overwatch for seemingly no reason. Ordinarily, issues like these would be brushed off as being part and parcel of the modern online experience. However, a suspicious tweet from a known Lizard Squad member has led to the group being implicated, according to a report from VG247. The above tweet is being taken as proof that Lizard Squad member AppleJ4ck was involved with the attack. Some Overwatch players responded to his post to vent their annoyance about the situation — to which AppleJ4ck responded, “in a way, I’m doing y’all a favor.” This is not the first time that Lizard Squad has targeted organizations within the video game industry. The group rose to prominence back in 2014, when a coordinated attack brought down the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live over Christmas, causing massive headaches for the companies involved. Of course, the attack was not an unmitigated success for the group, as the high-profile hack made Lizard Squad an immediate target for authorities. Just days later, a 22-year-old alleged to be a part of the organization was the subject of a raid by police in the United Kingdom. However, the strength of a group like Lizard Squad is the fact that they are spread all over the world. Individual members can be found and brought to justice, but it’s difficult to make a concerted attempt to stamp out its activity outright. If the situation is hard on the authorities, then it’s even more challenging for a company like Blizzard. The overwhelming popularity of Overwatch means its hard enough for the company to keep Battle.net afloat at the best of team, never mind when there are hackers on the prowl. Unfortunately, criminal elements like Lizard Squad are part and parcel of the modern online experience. Companies like Blizzard have to take these groups into consideration when operating a service like Battle.net — hackers have the power to ruin the experience for the rest of us, and the only defence is a robust level of security. Source: http://gamerant.com/overwatch-servers-down-ddos-attack-846/

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Overwatch Servers Went Down After Alleged DDoS Attack