Security

Beware of Ransom-Driven DDoS Attacks

Ransomware is not just defined as a cyberattack that demands money in exchange for access to your encrypted files.

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Wylie Wong is a freelance journalist who specializes in business, technology and sports. He is a regular contributor to the CDW family of technology magazines.

Ransomware isn’t the only cyberextortion threat that businesses need to protect against. Some cyberthieves also demand that businesses pay a ransom or else face a distributed denial of service attack.

A few months ago, Chris Parker, founder of WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, received an email that threatened to launch a DDoS attack on his website unless he gave the cybercriminals $10,000 in bitcoin.

Parker wasn’t sure if the threat was legitimate, but as a precaution, he alerted his infrastructure provider to monitor website traffic and mitigate an attack if it occurred. His service provider uses a content delivery platform that protects websites from DDoS attacks. In that instance, no DDoS attack occurred, but his provider was ready.

“I won’t interact with the people who threaten me, but I’m going to take a preventive measure by talking to my provider in case something happens,” he says.

Find out more about how to protect your Domain Name System servers in this best practices article by a network security expert.

And for more on how organizations are using technology to battle ransomware today, visit, “Inside the Real-World Fight Against Ransomware.”