No, they've been doing this for many years. You just don't hear about it much since nobody wants to draw attention to these terrorists.
Well they certainly deserve every cent they get for the risk they put themselves in, albeit a little difficult it would still be possible to track them down.
I think a long time ago when MtGox was younger they said that someone was DDoSing them but would stop for a $10k ransom. Or maybe that was some other site. Point is, this is extremely common. In fact, it's one of the best ways for botnet operators to monetize their botnets.
I've heard of botnets mining LTC but never blackmailing websites... I was under the impression that that was the newest trend.
How long have you been in gaming? Sportingbet used to get attacked that way in the 90s. Every big match was preceded by a ddos and a message "Pay us or no revenue for you."
Pretty long but I'm talking about BTC businesses, it amazed me that they demanded ransom in BTC and that websites such a bitzino, Strikesapphire, S. Dice etc weren't attacked (I don't even recall them being offline after all the times I've played).
Anyway Maged is probably right, these dogs don't deserve a mention, no serious bitcoin site would send ransom to Iranian 13 year old teenagers with moustaches.