The Department of Justice announced on Wednesday that the United States has seized dozens of internet domains and charged six individuals in an effort to dismantle a network of cyberattack-for-hire services.
In total, according to federal prosecutors, the U.S. obtained a court order to seize 48 websites, and six people have been criminally charged. Officials said the FBI is in the process of taking control of the websites.
The websites were used to launch or attempt to launch millions of so-called DDoS attacks worldwide, according to the Justice Department. DDoS attacks, short for distributed denial-of-service, overwhelm a website or computer network with massive volumes of unwanted internet traffic in order to take it offline.
“The sweeping law enforcement actions this week are an important step in our ongoing efforts to eradicate criminal behavior that threatens the infrastructure of the internet and our ability to function in a digital world,” said Martin Estrada, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California.
According to cybersecurity experts, DDoS-for-hire services often present themselves as “stress testing” or “booter” tools designed to help users test the resilience of websites and services they operate. In reality, the services are frequently used for harassment, extortion, and criminal disruption.
Sites seized by the FBI include, among others, royalstresser, securityteam, and dragonstresser.
One common use of these services is to take competitors in online gaming offline. In other cases, DDoS services have been used to extort news websites into removing unfavorable articles or to demand money from businesses in exchange for stopping attacks.
The FBI and Department of Justice previously conducted a similar operation against DDoS websites in December 2018, when they seized 15 domains and charged three individuals. That action took place just before Christmas, a period when gaming services are often heavily targeted.
Based on materials from Bloomberg