Against DDoS Attackers
The Financial Supervisory Service of South Korea told, on June 26, local financial companies not to yield to threats from hackers such as DDoS attackers. It also said that they need to protect local e-finance systems from their attacks by complying with legal security standards.
Nayana, a local web hosting firm, recently had to pay approximately 1.3 billion won in bitcoin to an international group of hackers after its ransomware attack. The financial watchdog’s request is not to repeat this incident. The ransomware attack on June 10 paralyzed more than half of the firm’s 300 servers along with 3,600 websites.
More recently, hacking group Armada Collective sent e-mails to the Korea Exchange and seven major banks and two major securities companies in South Korea, saying that they will have to face DDoS attacks unless they send 10 to 15 bitcoins by June 26 in the case of the Korea Exchange and by June 28 in the case of the others. According to virtual currency exchange Bithumb, the price of one unit of bitcoin is currently around 3.43 million won.
Under the circumstances, the Financial Supervisory Service has initiated an emergency procedure with the Financial Security Institute, the banks and mobile carriers. No specific damage has been reported yet.