DDoS Marketing Stunt Lands Hong Kong IT Businessman in Jail

In an attempt to advertise its anti-DDoS service, web hosting firm Pacswitch Globe Telecom in Hong Kong launched a test distributed denial of service attack against HKEnews, a local stock exchange website.

HKEnews happens to be the most-used platform for company announcements and as a consequence of the two DDoS attacks, the website had to be temporarily shut down and trading was suspended in seven different companies.

In his defense, the 28 year-old Tse Man-lai argued that the site had been accessed only long enough for him to take screenshots and video of the attack, materials necessary for the promotion of his company`s anti-DDoS service. He was talking about two attacks – one of 390 seconds and another of 70 seconds.

According to the South China Morning Post, Judge Kim Longley catalogued this practice as “highly reckless” behavior and sentenced the young businessman to nine months behind bars, even though a former lawmaker for information technology defended Tse`s work helped the local IT industry.

Hong Kong fights a fierce battle with blackmailers who use DDoS attacks to squeeze money from their victims. Senior Inspector Raymond Cao Wai-ki, of the Commercial Crime Bureau technology crime division, stated that, even though Tse’s deed didn`t have a disastrous impact on the website and his intentions were linked to the promotion of his DDoS mitigation solution, the jail sentence has to be perceived as a “clear message to the public that the internet is not a lawless territory”.