Would You Pay Ransom To Save Your Credit Union From A DDoS Attack?

It’s possible I have watched too much crime TV in my lifetime – because when I hear the words ransom and extortion I immediately have visions of masked bad guys taking someone’s loved one and demanding some unspecified cash amount for their release. So, it was with some concern years ago when I started my credit union career that I listened intently during onboarding discussions how financial industry personnel, especially those thought to have “access” to money,  could be targeted for ransom/kidnapping attacks.  I diligently checked the parking lot going in/out of the building after hours.

As the IT person (not handling cash), you probably thinking that you are an unlikely target of ever being involved in a ransom/extortion event. Not so fast! While you may not be the target – your NETWORK might! Credit Union DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks are a growing trend used to extort money from financial industries. But wait – I thought DDoS was just a flood of traffic aimed at my network or ISP and meant to be more annoying and disruptive than anything else?

Unfortunately, times have changed and the savvy hacker has evolved from the bored teenager profile to sophisticated criminal rings out to benefit financially by exploiting cyber weaknesses.

Our friends over at MazeBolt.com recently published a blog that I feel all credit union CIO/CTO’s should read. Yair MelMed describes how these sophisticated attacks evolve:

“It started with a five minute long DDoS attack which established that the cybercriminals meant business and could cause impact, this small sample attack stopped all business for five minutes. They then sent an email demanding payment of the ransom in bitcoins within 48 hours, otherwise a second and far more damaging DDoS attack would ensue and the ransom amount would be raised.”

He goes on to say that “this type of attack: ‘DDoS Extortion’ has become increasingly popular during the past year and the official guidance to companies who find themselves in a DDoS Extortion situation, as recently reiterated by the FBI, is: Do Not Pay the ransom but rather focus efforts at strengthening DDoS mitigation.

So how can a credit union mitigate its risk against DDoS Extortion attempts?  It’s actually fairly simple. Develop A testing methodology, identify gaps and make adjustments. Rinse and repeat – often.

At MazeBolt, they employ an ‘Emergency BaseLine DDoS Testing’ methodology comprised of the following three stages:

• Reconnaissance – Working with the company to understand as much as possible about relevant subnets and foot-printing the environment with port scanning and DNS enumeration.
• Testing – Simulating a variety of tests to identify points of failure
• Troubleshooting & Hardening – Resolving immediate critical issues and troubleshooting the necessary network points to have a DDoS mitigation defense ready for the threatened attack.

To learn more about how to protect your credit union from extortion attempts, read MazeBolt’s full article – “DDoS Extortion – Biting the DDoS Bullet”.

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