DDOS blackmail on the rise in Japan

According to the Japanese daily paper, the Yomiuri Shimbun - blackmail involving distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks are on the rise in Japan.

The weekend edition of the paper reports that, once a DDOS attack - usually arranged through a botnet swarm - has started, the hackers demand money in return for stopping their attacks.

The paper quotes the owner of a major Tokyo firm as having pay around £15,500 (3m Yen) after its site was effectively paralysed by a concerted DDOS attack.

Although the firm has been working with Japanese police and the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry on the crime, the attackers have been almost impossible to track down, owing to the size and effective anonymity of the botnet swarm.