Million Dollar Homepage blackmailed

The creator of the Million Dollar Homepage is being blackmailed by cyber-criminals.

Twenty-one year old Alex Tew from Wiltshire started the page to raise money to get himself through university, selling advertising space in blocks of 100 pixels at $100 each.

He managed to sell all the pixels in just five months, but on 7 January received an email telling him the site would come under attack within 72 hours if he refused to pay $5,000 (£2,800).

Tew told Web User he refused to even answer the demand, but later got another email raising the fee the $50,000 (£28,000).

The criminals then targeted the site with a series of zombie computers, bombarding it with data, causing it to buckle under the strain.

The attack, called a Denial of Service attack, is difficult to trace, and difficult to prevent.

The FBI and High Tech Crime Unit are looking into the case, and Tew is working with technology companies to protect his site.

Since the attack, he has managed to get the site running some of the time, but says more work is needed to protect it.

Tew described the past weeks as a ‘nightmare’ and said he is working to tell the 2000 customers who have paid $1m between them to advertise on the site what is going on, but this is proving difficult because their email addresses were saved on the site.

“It’s not the best end to the site,” he said. “I was hoping to go on holiday.

“I’ve no intention of paying, it’s the internet equivalent to terrorism.”

www.milliondollarhomepage.com