DDoS is on an upward trend, and it’s being used for extortion. A payroll provider recovers from an unspecified cyberattack. Russia charges Group-IB CEO with treason. NSA, CISA, advise on using VPNs.

Distributed denial-of-service attacks have been making a comeback, and many of them represent criminal extortion attempts. A major British payroll provider is recovering from a cyberattack, but it’s not providing much information on the nature of that attack. Russian authorities arrest the founder of Group-IB on treason charges. Johannes Ullrich from SANS on Out of Band Phishing Using SMS messages. Our UK correspondent Carole Theriault wonders how online trolling is still a thing. And NSA and CISA release guidelines on secure use of virtual private networks.