Silk Road Marketplace Cyber Extortion: Ransom Demands And Attacks

Hackers extorted thousands of dollars out of the Silk Road marketplace through threats of hitting the site with denial of service attacks or exposing severe security vulnerabilities. Hackers and security specialists come in many different guises -- from white-hat teams who pinpoint vulnerabilities and conduct penetration testing with the overall aim of improving network security to black-hats using their skills for personal gain -- and the occasional hacktivist and script kiddie who take down websites for political means, or just because they can.

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