Distributed Denial of Service Attacks, also known by its acronym in English DDoS, are one of the most common ways to take a website down. O US Department of Justice took down 48 domains that offered actions of this type in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. Six people were prosecuted.
On-demand DDoS platforms are called booters or stressors. The booters promise to “kick” an internet site — hence their name.
Stressors, on the other hand, try to maintain some semblance of legitimacy. They are presented as tools to test the resilience of infrastructures, such as servers. In practice, however, they do the same thing.
The 48 domains offered DDoS attack services against websites. Interested parties needed to create an account and make a cryptocurrency deposit to conduct an attack.
By registering, users agreed to the terms of use, ensuring that the services would not be used to harm third parties.
Even so, the platform owners themselves ran promotions and offered discount coupons on cybercrime sites, revealing their true use.
DDoS attacks coordinate multiple devices connected to a network, so-called botnets🇧🇷 They shoot concurrent requests to the same site, causing it to become overloaded and stop responding. Thus, legitimate users are prevented from accessing.
FBI impersonated a client and proved attacks
Six individuals, ages 19 to 37, were prosecuted by California and Alaska prosecutors. The action of the FBI and international bodies took down 48 websites of booters or stressors platforms. Each of the accused was responsible for at least one of them.
The FBI posed as a consumer, contracted and tested each of the 48 services to prove that they really worked.
According to the US Department of Justice, the action was taken before Christmas because this is a period in which the occurrence of DDoS attacks grows a lot, mainly involving game servers.
The initiative is part of Operation PowerOFF, which aims to combat this type of attack. British and Dutch authorities are also participating in the endeavor.
Even ads on Google were bought to raise awareness of those looking for this type of “service”. Thus, if someone searches for “booter service”, they will be warned that the practice is illegal. Upon clicking, the user is taken to a UK National Crime Agency pagewhich informs that doing so is a crime.
With information: Bleeping Computer🇧🇷 US Department of Justice🇧🇷
https://tecnoblog.net/noticias/2022/12/16/fbi-derruba-48-dominios-que-ofereciam-ataques-ddos-sob-encomenda/