Aria boss pays bounty to hack-busting duo

Two men presented with a £1,000 cheque for information that helped police catch hackers bringing down retailer's website

The boss of Aria has dished out a £1,000 bounty to two men who helped police catch hackers who targeted the electronic retailer's website last year.

Aria's website was repeatedly hacked in February 2013, with the perpetrators bringing down the website every day at 5pm with sustained denial-of-service attacks.

Aria Taheri, chief executive of Aria, has awarded a cheque for £1,000 to sales assistant Brendan Van Varik, and managing director at play3r, Gavin Bonshor, who tipped off Taheri about who was hacking the website after Taheri put up a bounty on his forum.

The information they gave meant police were able to catch the hackers and confiscate their equipment.

Bonshor described receiving the cheque as a "fantastic gesture of generosity".

Taheri (pictured above, with Bonshor and Van Varik) told CRN: "They [the hackers] timed the attack to coincide with the busiest time of the day for our e-commerce site, at around 5pm. It cost us a few thousand pounds in revenue from orders and created an issue where people were questioning our competency because it was happening every day."

Following the tip off police raided two addresses in North London and the hackers had their equipment confiscated but there was no criminal conviction as there was not enough evidence, according to Taheri.

This is not the only occasion a business has put up a bounty to catch cybercriminals, with Overclockers.co.uk offering a £10,000 reward for information about attackers who targeted their site in January 2009.