The media often reports of our vulnerability to cyber-attacks and the increased threat they now represent. However, as the International Business Times reports, for most gambling companies, the threats have become an ordinary part of doing business.
The attackers’ mode of operation is to typically launch a DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack aimed a flooding a website with traffic from multiple sources taking it offline.
Previously, attackers would need to set up a network of compromised systems infected with a Trojan horse virus themselves. But now, there are organizations for hire that can do the deed for them. Online gambling companies have accepted these outages as an unfortunate cost of doing business.
“There won’t be a crisis of internet crime,” says Ashley Stephenson from web security firm Corero. “It’s just a nuisance. Like real-life, with credit card fraudsters or people who knock on old people’s doors pretending to be electricians, we’ll always have these bottom feeders, this background level of activity. It’s part of having an online business.”
In lieu of possible downtime and potential profit loss, gambling companies will often give in to the blackmailer’s demands. When compared to the expense of extended downtime, the demands are typically insignificant.
Corero estimates that a gambling site can lose as much as $200,000 due to DDoS attacks.
Companies such as Cloudfare offer protection against DdoS attacks for around $200 per month.
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