Monthly Archives: July 2015

About DD4BC

This is an FAQ about DD4BC that I wrote for Akamai, and it appeared here and here.

DD4BC, the malicious group responsible for several Bitcoin extortion campaigns last year, continues to expand attacks against Akamai customers. Researchers from Akamai’s PLXsert and CSIRT teams continue to investigate attack activity related to the group.

In recent weeks, the frequency of customers receiving ransom emails from this band of chaotic actors has steadily grown. DD4BC continues to inform victims that they will launch a DDoS attack of 400-500 Gbps against them. To date, DD4BC attack campaigns mitigated by Akamai have not exceeded 50 Gbps in size. That’s up from the high of 15-20 Gbps observed in early May. (A full history of the group’s exploits and firepower can be found in this advisory from April.)

Below are the most commonly asked questions we’ve received from customers, along with some answers.

What is new since the last update?

The group can now attack with firepower of up to 50 gigabits per second. Additionally, they now threaten exposure to a targeted organization via social media in addition to the DDoS attack itself. The goal is to publicly embarrass the target via social media, thus harming the company’s reputation and to garner additional attention towards credibility for the service disruption. Their methodology has also changed in that they are utilizing multi-vector campaigns more readily as well as in some instances re-visiting previous targets that experienced some level of impact during the initial event. We have also observed this group incorporating a Layer 7 attack as part of the multi-vector attack.

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