might be in trouble.
After taking down and arresting the operators of the world’s
biggest DDoS-for-hire service[1]
last year, the authorities are now in hunt for customers who bought
the service that helped cyber criminals launch millions of attacks
against several banks, government institutions, and gaming
industry.
Europol has announced that British police are conducting a
number of live operations worldwide to track down the users of the
infamous Webstresser.org service that the authorities dismantled in
April 2018.
Launched in 2015, Webstresser let its customers rent the service
for about £10 to launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
attacks against their targets with little to no technical
knowledge, which resulted in more than 4 million DDoS attacks.
According to the Europol announcement[2]
published on Monday, the agency gained access to the accounts of
over 151,000 registered Webstresser users last year when it shut
down the service and have now uncovered a “trove of information”
against some users that could help the agency track them down.
Europol said more than 250 users of Webstresser and other
DDoS-for-hire services[3]
will soon face potential prosecution for the damage they have
caused.
“Size does not matter — all levels of users are under the radar of
law enforcement, be it a gamer booting out the competition out of a
game, or a high-level hacker carrying out DDoS attacks against
commercial targets for financial gain,” Europol said.
been visited by the police. In the Netherlands, the police are
trying to link user profiles to the identities of Dutch people,
while “a Dutch user of webstresser.org has already received this
alternative sanction.”
Other countries, including the United States, Belgium, Croatia,
France, Germany, Greece, Denmark, Romania, Estonia, Hungary,
Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia,
Sweden, Australia, Colombia, Serbia, have also joined the fight
against DDoS attacks.
While some of these countries are focusing their actions
specifically against the Webstresser users, some have intensified
their activities against the users of any DDoS
booter or stresser
service.
[4][5]
“To this effect, the FBI seized last December 15 other
DDoS-for-hire websites, including the relatively well known Downthem and
Quantum Stresser[6],” Europol said.
“Similarly, the Romanian police has taken measures against the
administrators of 2 smaller-scale DDoS platforms and has seized
digital evidence, including information about the users.”
prosecuted.
References
- ^
world’s biggest DDoS-for-hire
service (thehackernews.com) - ^
announcement
(www.europol.europa.eu) - ^
DDoS-for-hire services
(thehackernews.com) - ^
DDoS booter
(thehackernews.com) - ^
stresser service
(thehackernews.com) - ^
Downthem and Quantum Stresser
(thehackernews.com)
Read more http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheHackersNews/~3/aZW16SxY6F0/ddos-for-hire-services.html