Widespread DDoS Attacks Alleged in Asia

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Mar 4, 2021

Extortion of up to $50 000 attempted

Several sources have made as yet unconfirmed reports that widespread Distributed Denial of Services attacks took place over the past week, mainly in the Asian markets.

Apparently sites which went down in the attacks included Bet365, Veesports, Yishengbo, Playit365, 777ball, Hooball and Macauslot, but this had not been confirmed when InfoPowa went to press.

Initial reports indicate that Bet365 has recovered from the attack, but others are still battling with the criminal activity. The total losses have been estimated in the millions. Several of the sites had notices up advising clients of the attacks, and Support staff confirmed to several players that an attack was in progress.

According to some reports, the raiders followed known DDoS modus operandi by first paralysing the sites to illustrate their capability, and then demanding amounts ranging from $5 000 to as much as $50 000. It is not known if any of the sites paid up, or what DDoS protective measures were in place.

DDoS attacks are usually carried out by criminals controlling tens of thousands of PCs (usually without their owners being aware of it) and commanding the machines to bombard the target site with millions of messages, overwhelming the servers and crashing the site. Counter measures have become increasingly sophisticated, because companies can lose substantial amounts of money by being offline, especially during key sporting events when betting is heavy.

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