[__s]

Botnets aren't smaller (IoT has been quite a boon to them)

& according to https://www.comparitech.com/blog/information-security/ddos-s... their frequency isn't declining

But yes, the larger sites have gotten their shit together so that the cost to DDoS has gone up

Also if you have a botnet you now have to ask: do you want rent out DDoS or do you want to mine crypto?

[TacticalCoder]

How that's a good point: especially that if you DDoS while asking for a ransom, you take the risk that your botnets gets taken down. While if you "discretly" mine CPU (and/or GPU?) mineable cryptocurrencies, you kinda fly under the radar.

[ryanlol]

You DDoS from routers and other embedded devices which aren’t capable of mining anything.

[short12]

There have been many attempts to do exactly that with varied success.

The best I could find was 250 a day using only 15,000 hosts. Not bad considering the cost is literally zero for the attackers. Scale that up to half a million hosts, which is a tiny botnet in reality would make 8000+ a day or over 3 million a year based on low hanging fruit

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/01/thousands-of-iot-devices-can...

[Sebguer]

There are bandwidth-based coins.