Russian held in Amazon cyberattack case

A Russian man suspected of launching hacking attacks against Amazon.com has been arrested in Cyprus and faces extradition to the United States, officials said. Dmitry Olegovich Zubakha, who allegedly launched two botnet-based attacks against the online retailer in 2008, was arrested Wednesday on an international warrant, the U.S. Department of Justice said. The Moscow resident is also suspected of attempting to use the BITNET to overwhelm systems at Priceline.com and eBay, Dent reported. Prosecutors said Zubakha launched the first denial-of-service attack against Amazon at 1:23am EDT June 6, 2008, and it took Amazon several hours to mitigate the cyberattack. "Orders from Amazon.com customers dropped significantly, as legitimate customers were unable to access the Web site and complete their e-commerce transactions during the pendency of the attack," an indictment unsealed Thursday in district court in western Washington said. A second, more prolonged attack was made against Amazon June 9, the indictment said. "This defendant could not hide in cyberspace, and I congratulate the international law enforcement agencies who tracked him down and made this arrest," U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan said in a statement.