Law enforcement shuts down 27 DDoS-for-hire service platforms

Law enforcement agencies from 15 different countries have taken offline 27 of the most popular platforms to carry out DDoS attacks.

The effort was part of Operation PowerOFF, an ongoing operation against DDoS-for-hire services that is designed to dismantle the digital infrastructure, and to hold providers and users accountable for the crippling effects of DDoS attacks.

Cybercriminals use these Distributed-Denial-of-Service or DDoS attacks to cripple an organization’s corporate network or website by overloading it with internet traffic and data requests. This causes affected organizations great financial damage and loss of reputation.

Law enforcement agencies from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Romania, the United Kingdom and the United States participated in the operation, which was coordinated by Europol.

During the operation, 27 so-called booter or stresser websites were taken down, including popular DDoS-for-hire platforms like zdstresser.net, orbitalstress.net and starkstresser.net. Furthermore, three administrators were arrested in France and Germany, and over 300 users were identified for planned operational activities. Four of them are being prosecuted by the Dutch Public Prosecution Service.

“Operation PowerOFF is sending a powerful message towards cybercriminals. Criminals who make money from taking down other people’s ICT are simply punishable and they are going to be aware of that. The police are cracking down on cybercrime, in any form,” says Iris Koster, Cyberspecialist at the Dutch National Police, in a statement.

To refrain future users from engaging in criminal activities with these DDoS-for-hire services, Europol is launching online ad campaigns on both Google Search and YouTube Ads. In addition, police officers have confronted users of these illegal services by sending over 250 warning letters, 2,000 emails and knock-and-talks to warn users of the consequences and legal punishments of DDoS attacks.

The Dutch police consider these alternative interventions very important. “By doing so, we want to prevent those involved from growing into criminals,” Koster adds.