In a press release published three days ago, Dutch police said they had successfully shut down 15 DDoS-for-hire services in just one week, making it one of the largest successful crackdowns on DDoS service providers.
DDoS-for-hire websites, also known as DDoS booters or DDoS stressors, allowed users to register and carry out DDoS attacks on sites and other online infrastructure.
Dutch authorities said the shutdown of the services took place last week. The operation also owes its success to cooperation with Europol, Interpol, the FBI, as well as web hosting companies and domain registrars.
Authorities did not release the names of the 15 DDoS-for-hire services.
This is the second time in six months that Dutch police have been confronted with DDoS-for-hire services.
In October last year, Dutch authorities shut down an entire web hosting company that provided hosting services and infrastructure to dozens of DDoS botnets and booter services.
Additionally, in 2018, the Dutch police participated in an international operation to crack down on DDoS booters. The incident took place in December 2018. The FBI and Europol, in cooperation with other agencies (including the Dutch authorities), shut down 15 DDoS booter services just before Christmas, the period when most DDoS attacks occur.
In addition to the shutdown of 15 DDoS-for-hire services last week, an arrest. Authorities said they arrested a 19-year-old from the city of Breda after he was found to have carried out DDoS attacks on two Dutch government sites on March 20.
Police said the suspect attacked MijnOverheid.nl, a portal through which Dutch citizens receive documents from the Dutch government. The second site he targeted is Overheid.nl, a government information portal.
The 19-year-old will be brought before a Dutch court in the coming days.
