Hackers are increasingly attempting to extort companies and individuals by threatening severe reputational harm through online reviews sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor, security experts tell The Hill.
While internet extortion schemes are not new, their perpetrators now appear to be spamming sites where enough negative reviews can scare away firms’ customers.
“It is definitely an increase that we see — that more and more hackers are misusing the whole brand reputation and any type of review process to blackmail and extort companies,” Candid Wueest, a Symantec threat researcher based in Europe, told The Hill. “Of course the same would be harmful for anyone who has an online profile such as hotels — we’ve seen it with restaurants as well, like TripAdvisor or Yelp.”
