Decade Old DDoS-for-Hire Service Taken Down, Administrators Arrested

Polish authorities took down a DDoS-for-hire service that’s been around for a decade following an investigation with support of the FBI, Europol and law enforcement agencies from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

DDoS attacks are always a nuisance, but they can inflict serious damage to companies and organizations. The simple fact that a webpage or a service is unavailable to regular users during a DDoS attack can cause all types of complications.

As technology improved over the years and hardware resources became more readily available, DDoS-for-hire services started to pop up worldwide. Even people who knew little about technology could contract these services for many types of attacks, including in the gaming industry, to slow download opponents in online matches, for example.

“Known as Operation Power Off, this operation saw law enforcement in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany take action against these types of attacks which can paralyse the internet,” reads the Europol statement.

“The services seized were by far the most popular DDoS booter services on the market, receiving top billing on search engines. One such service taken down had been used to carry out over 30 million attacks. As part of this action, seven administrators have been arrested so far in the United States and the United Kingdom, with further actions planned against the users of these illegal services,” the law agency explained.

According to a BleepingComputer report, Polish police arrested two suspects allegedly involved in the DDoS-for-hire service, which allowed them to track down a server in Switzerland. Information on more than 35,000 users accounts was collected, along with 320,000 unique IP addresses used by the illegal service.

Agents also discovered information on 11,000 purchases from buyers who paid $400,000. Since this was part of a global crackdown, similar operations occurred in other countries.