The Austrian police have arrested one person and detained a second in an international operation against the cyber criminal group DD4BC (DDoS for Bitcoin). According to police, the two people were identified as a German national of Turkish origin who was living in Austria since 2012 and had been involved with DDoS-for-bitcoin activities. Austria initiated Operation Pleiades with support from Europol’s European Cybercriminal Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT). Working alongside them were police forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany and the UK, which additionally co-ordinated with the police in Australia, France, Japan, Romania, Switzerland, and the US. Beginning in July 2014, the group initially targeted the online gambling industry before broadening its operations to include the entertainment industry, financial services, the oil and gas sector, and the technology sector. Europol has warned businesses against paying ransoms when targeted by groups like DD4BC, arguing that those that do are often targeted again. Instead, the agency called on organisations to invest in mitigation capability, which help to both protect them and increase costs for the attacker.
The Austrian police have arrested one person and detained a second in an international operation against the cyber criminal group DD4BC (DDoS for Bitcoin). As its name suggests, the group uses distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to target organisations for extortion. Austria initiated Operation Pleiades with support from Europol’s European Cybercriminal Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT). Working alongside them were police forces from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany and the UK, which additionally co-ordinated with the police in Australia, France, Japan, Romania, Switzerland, and the US. Beginning in July 2014, the group initially targeted the online gambling industry before broadening its operations to include the entertainment industry, financial services, the oil and gas sector, and the technology sector. Europol has warned businesses against paying ransoms when targeted by groups like DD4BC, arguing that those that do are often targeted again. Instead, the agency called on organisations to invest in mitigation capability, which help to both protect them and increase costs for the attacker.