the "Armada Collective DDOS Attack" Extortion Scam
Online scammers are sending email messages like the one below to their potential victims, in the hope of frightening them into sending Bitcoin or money, by claiming if they do not, the potential victims' networks will be taken down using a DDOS attack. To frighten their potential victims, the scammers are using the name of a hacking group called Armada Collective who has extorted money from numerous firms and banks around the world.
Therefore, recipients of the same email messages (see sample below) should not follow the instructions in them and should never send money to the scammers. The scammers responsible for sending the same email messages have been doing so for a couple years now, and have never carried their so-called attacks.
DDoS is a type of DOS attack where multiple compromised systems, which are often infected with a Trojan or other malware, are used to target a single system causing a Denial of Service (DoS) attack that will shut the system down.
A Sample of the "Armada Collective DDOS Attack" Extortion Scam
To: [Victim Org's Role Account]
From: armada.collective@openmailbox.org
Subject: DDOS ATTACK!!
FORWARD THIS MAIL TO WHOEVER IS IMPORTANT IN YOUR COMPANY AND CAN MAKE DECISION!
We are Armada Collective.
hxxp://lmgtfy.com/?q=Armada+Collective
Your network will be DDoS-ed starting [date] if you don't pay protection fee - 10 Bitcoins @ [Bitcoin Address].
If you don't pay by [date], attack will start, yours service going down permanently price to stop will increase to 20 BTC and will go up 10 BTC for every day of attack.
This is not a joke.
Our attacks are extremely powerful - sometimes over 1 Tbps per second. And we pass CloudFlare and others remote protections! So, no cheap protection will help.
Prevent it all with just 10 BTC @ [Bitcoin Address]
Do not reply, we will not read. Pay and we will know its you. AND YOU WILL NEVER AGAIN HEAR FROM US!
Bitcoin is anonymous, nobody will ever know you cooperated.
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Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.