The US Department of Justice and the FBI seized 48 domains and charged six suspects for their involvement in operating “Booter” or “Stresser” platforms that allow anyone to easily conduct DDoS (denial-of-service) attacks.
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Booters are online platforms that allow threat actors to pay for DDoS attacks on websites and devices connected to the internet. Essentially, they “throw” their target off the internet.
Stressers offer the same DDoS capabilities, but claim to be provided for legitimate use to test the reliability of web services and the servers behind them.
“Some sites use the term ‘stresser’ in an attempt to convince people that the service could be used to test the resilience of their own infrastructure. However, as described below, I believe this is a cover and that these services exist to conduct DDoS attacks on victims’ computers that are not controlled by the attacker and without the victim’s authorization,” says FBI Special Agent Elliott Peterson.
To use these services, threat actors register an account and deposit cryptocurrency, which is then used to pay for the services.
While almost all "Booter" or "Stresser" sites require a subscriber to agree not to use the services to carry out attacks, many of these services are promoted on hacking forums and criminal marketplaces.
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In many cases, platform owners themselves promote deals and/or coupons on cybercrime sites or use affiliates who earn commissions to promote the service.
Targeting DDoS Platforms Worldwide
Today, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska announced the sentencing of six individuals for operating “Booter/Stresser” sites.
“These services allow anyone to launch cyberattacks that harm individual victims and compromise everyone’s ability to access the internet,” said U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada.
The suspects include one person from Texas, three from Florida, one from New York, and another from Hawaii who allegedly operated several websites , including RoyalStresser.com, SecurityTeam.io, Astrostress.com, Booter.sx, Ipstressor.com, and TrueSecurityServices.io.
As part of a broader operation against DDoS platforms, dubbed “Operation PowerOFF,” the FBI and international law enforcement seized 48 sites (full list at the end of the article) of “Booting/Stressing” platforms around the world.
Once the domains are officially seized and transferred to a DNS used by authorities, they will display a seizure message warning that these services are illegal, as we will show you below.
Thom Mrozek, Media Relations Director for the U.S. Attorney's Office Central District, told BleepingComputer that the FBI is currently working with Domain Authorities to implement the seizure notices, but the sites are no longer operational.
The FBI is also working with the U.K.'s National Crime Agency and the Dutch National Police to display ads in search engines when people search for "Booter" services.
Source: bleepingcomputer.com
