The US Department of Justice seized 13 more domains linked to DDoS-for-Hire services also known as “booter” or “stresser” services.
The seizures were part of an ongoing coordinated international law enforcement campaign (known as Operation PowerOFF) aimed at disrupting online platforms allowing anyone to launch massive distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against any target for a fee.
“The seizures this week are the third wave of U.S. law enforcement actions against prominent booter services that allowed paying users to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks that flood targeted computers with information and prevent them from being able to access the internet,” the DoJ said in a press release. “Data relating to the operation of booter sites previously seized by law enforcement show that hundreds of thousands of registered users have used these services to launch millions of attacks against millions of victims. School districts, universities, financial institutions and government websites are among the victims who have been targeted in attacks launched by booter services.”
Out of 13 seized domains ten are said to be reincarnations of services that were seized during a December 2022 effort when the authorities disrupted 48 internet domains associated with DDoS-for-hire services. In addition, six alleged operators of DDoS-for-Hire services, including RoyalStresser[.]com (formerly Supremesecurityteam), SecurityTeam[.]io, Astrostress[.]com, Booter[.]sx, IPStresser[.]com, and TrueSecurityServices[.]io, were charged with operating booter services and violating the computer fraud and abuse act.
Four of the defendants pled guilty earlier this year, and all four are scheduled to be sentenced this summer.
