http://www.networkworld.com/article/2449855/security0/bloody-june-what-s-behind-last-month-s-ddos-attacks.html By Jon Gold Follow NetworkWorld July 7, 2014 The list of DDoS attacks in the month of June has made for grim reading. High-profile sites have been targeted by extortion demands, online games got disrupted and at least one company was put out of business as a direct result. While it’s tempting to look for a single cause at the root of this apparent tsunami of distributed denial-of-service activity, the reality is considerably more complex. Online activism, the profit motive and even potential nation-state activity contributed to June’s high volume of DDoS attacks. The only commonality, in fact, may be the ease with which DDoS attacks can be launched. Experts like Molly Sauter, an academic and author of the forthcoming book The Coming Swarm, say that the process is childishly simple. “Literally, if you have a credit card and if you’re bored, it could be anyone,” Sauter told Network World. “It’s so easy to rent a botnet – most of them are out of Russia – and you can rent one for stupid cheap, and then deploy it for a couple of hours, and that’s really all you need to target a major site like Feedly or Evernote.” […]