Million dollar website attacked by zombie computers
Alex Tew, the creator of the milliondollarhomepage.com now has an almost million dollar headache. By selling advertisements in one-pixel increments, Tew quickly made one million dollars in about four months, but criminals are now taking notice. Last week hackers sent an email asking for $5000 for them not to launch a denial of service attack.
After ignoring the email, Tew's site was hit with a massive attack coming from "zombie" computers - computers under the control of another person. The hackers raised their demands to $50,000.
Tew's website sells micro-ads where companies and individuals buy a chunk of pixels - at one dollar each pixel - to show ads. While some people think the site is just a jumble of color, others have happily plunked down money. Tew has sold the entire available space.
Tew says that he does not intend to give in to the hackers and adds that the FBI is investigating.
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Humphrey Cheung was a senior editor at Tom's Hardware, covering a range of topics on computing and consumer electronics. You can find more of his work in many major publications, including CNN and FOX, to name a few.