Hackers Force Ransom Using DDoS Attacks! What Should Organizations Do?

Hackers are now using DDoS attacks to pressure their victims even more! Security researchers suggest that companies and other organizations should invest in DDoS protection.

Why? Because hackers and other cyber attackers are currently extorting ransoms from different organizations, threatening them using a large-scale DDoS breach.

TechRadar reported that a Ransom DDoS hacking group previously attack a major Fortune Global 500 company. The group of cybercriminals claimed that they are from the Lazarus Group, a popular hacking team.

The incident took place in late 2020. The massive extortion was a part of a wider trend of ransom campaigns.

Researchers claim DDoS attacks will continue

Security experts predicted that the current improved massive DDoS attacks are likely to continue in the upcoming years. Hackers are also expected to use similar methods since they were proven successful. On the other hand, DDoS methods are very different from the usual hacking schemes of cybercriminals.

Unlike the methods that usually breach a company's network to obtain their sensitive files, RDDoS attack uses the threat of taking down the company's website itself. The hackers will use an overload of traffic that can cripple the business' system.

As of the moment, most companies are using cloud backup and other similar services to protect their data from being locked by a ransomware attack. However, DDoS protection ensures that your official website or system remains protected if hackers breached it using overload traffic.

How to know if you're under a DDoS attack?

According to Loggly's latest report, the first thing you need to do is to identify the DDoS attack while it is happening. Here are several signs or clues you need to watch out for.

• There is a DDoS attack if your system's IP address makes several requests over a few seconds.
• If you notice that there the connection is quite slow, then there's a chance that hackers are conducting a DDoS attack. This usually happens if the company is using the same connection for its internal software.
• You could also notice that there are log analysis solutions that have huge spike traffic.
• Also, watch out for the TTL (time to live) on a ping request times out.
• The last clue would be your server. If the company's server responds with a 503 because of a service outage, then there's a high chance you are under a DDoS attack.

For more news updates about hackers and their new methods, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes.

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Written by: Giuliano de Leon.