Social website Meetup.com refuses to pay ransom to hackers
Networking site Meetup.com is fighting a sustained battle against cybercriminals who are demanding a mere US$300 to call off an attack that has kept it offline for much of the past four days.
The site, which enables strangers to meet for sharedinterest activities ranging from parents' groups to software development, was back online but still under attack late on Monday, Meetup chief Scott Heiferman said.
Meetup has refused to pay the small ransom as it believes doing so would make the perpetrators of the attacks demand more cash.
"It's a cat and mouse game," Heiferman said, adding he was not yet sure how long it would take to get the website working reliably again.
A Meetup blog had earlier said the company was a victim of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) campaign, a type of attack that knocks websites offline by overwhelming them with incoming traffic. It said no personal data, including credit card information, had been accessed.
The FBI has been investigating the attack since late last week, when the assumed criminal group first offered to call it off if Meetup paid US$300.