Taiwan Brokerage Firms Receive DDoS Threats Demanding Ransom

Five Taiwan brokerages have received email threats from a group calling itself the Armada Collective asking for around $9,731 in Bitcoin to avoid a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on their websites, Reuters reports. Cybersecurity firm FireEye believes this is part of a string of such DDoS attacks first seen in Europe in January.

Rick Wang of Taiwan’s security regulator Financial Supervisory Commission said the country’s securities firms have been told to step up safety measures adding, "We have never seen this on such a scale - five companies hit at one time with the same threat." 

None of the targeted firms have paid the ransom. One of the five came under DDoS attack, and while another firm was also hit, but there was no confirmation that the attacks were related to the threats.

Authorities are probing source of the emails.

Read full story on Reuters.