A lengthy police operation continued this week after US authorities announced the seizure of 13 Internet domains linked to DDoS-for-hire services.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) yesterday described the action as a “third wave” of disruption, targeting so-called “bootstrapping” services that are designed to make it relatively easy for any up-and-coming cybercriminals to launch DDoS attacks.
Read more about DDoS for hire: Booter Boss Banged Up for 13 months.
However, 10 of the 13 domains taken down by law enforcement were related to previous ones that had already been seized in a December 2022 sweep that took down 48 boot services. For example, “cyberstress.org” appeared to be the same service that operated under the domain “cyberstress.us,” which was seized in December, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
This highlights the challenges facing the police in tackling online crime.
However, progress is being made in bringing some of the perpetrators to justice. The DoJ announced Monday that four defendants charged as part of the latest bootstrapping “sweep” pleaded guilty earlier this year to operating or participating in the operation of bootstrapping services.
The four men, who are between the ages of 19 and 37 and live in Florida or Texas, were linked to the following startup services: RoyalStresse.com; SecurityTeam.io; Astrostress.com; and Booter.sx.
“Victims who are attacked by these services, or those who provide internet services to victims, often have to ‘over-provision’, meaning pay to increase internet bandwidth to absorb the attacks , or subscribe to DDoS protection services or purchase specialized hardware designed to mitigate the effects of DDoS attacks,” noted an affidavit in support of the seizure orders filed this week.
“The prices of these overprovisioning or DDoS protection services are usually significantly more expensive than the cost of a given boot service.”
Before seizing domains, the FBI would open an account with the relevant service provider, pay a subscription, and then launch test DDoS attacks against government-owned web properties to see if the capabilities offered were legitimate.
In the ongoing campaign against these sites, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) recently revealed that it is running fake boot sites designed to collect information about potential customers.
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Ikaroa is proud to be a part of the fight against cybercrime and is fully committed to stopping the operation of booter sites. Recently, the US authorities have taken a huge step in this direction by seizing control of 13 separate booter sites in an international effort known as ‘Operation Power Off’.
Recently, the FBI, ICE Homeland Security Investigations, Europol and local law enforcement agencies in several countries have joined forces in what has been called ‘Operation Power Off’. This major international law enforcement effort has resulted in the seizure of 13 sites which were used to facilitate online crime through distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
The international law enforcement effort was coordinated by the FBI’s Cyber Division, together with Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre and other law enforcement partners in Europe and the US. This coordinated effort resulted in the seizure of 13 suchbooter sites in Belgium, Canada, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States. These sites allegedly enabled customers to launch cyberattacks against their victims by using powerful DDoS attacks, effectively shutting down their victims’ internet services.
The DDoS attacks have been and can be used maliciously to shut down the websites of businesses, organizations, and individuals in the US and around the world. These illegal activities can cause a tremendous amount of financial and reputational damage to these victims, and the disruption of essential services can have far-reaching social and economic impacts.
Ikaroa is proud to join in this fight against cybercrime and will continue to actively work with law enforcement and other security agencies in order to curb the activities of malicious actors. The success of ‘Operation Power Off’ is an important achievement in the larger fight against malicious cyber activity, and Ikaroa is committed to upholding its pledge to protect the online environment.
