Last week both BlackVPN and Cloak received DDoS threats from Armada Collective. The letter demanded a 10 bitcoin ransom which is the equivalent of $4,500. We’re happy to share that both VPN companies refused to pay the ransom and are preparing for the possibility of a DDoS attack starting on Monday, April 25. We’re hopeful no such attack will come but just in case they have each taken steps to warn members of the possible downtime. No customers data will be at risk but their websites and VPN networks may be inaccessible.
The same group launched a DDoS attack against ProtonMail and Hushmail last November. According to a post from BlackVPN on Reddit at least two other VPN companies received that same threat and we have heard from others. That leads us to believe the threat is likely just a hoax to profit from VPN’s that would rather pay the ransom rather than take the chance of being attacked. We’re hopeful that nothing will come of the DDoS threats.
What can you do as a user to protect yourself against DDoS attacks? It might seem an odd answer for this post but one of the best ways for gamers to protect against DDoS attacks is by using a VPN. Connecting to a VPN server will give you a new IP address so that the would be attackers can’t target a specific IP that you use all the time. The current DDoS threats are likely a hoax. The letters went out to multiple VPN services which would mean the attack would have to take place against a number of networks simultaneously. That seems unlikely but we’ll have to wait and see. If an attack does come and you’re VPN is impacted we hope you’ll be as understanding as possible. We appreciate that none of the VPN’s we heard from agreed to pay a ransom.