The Department of Justice issued a new release about the arrest of 3 people who managed 15 Internet domains for "sites, which offered what are often called "booter" or "stresser" services, 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 December 20, 2018 Justice News Release was entitled "Criminal Charges Filed in Los Angeles and Alaska in Conjunction with Seizures Of 15 Websites Offering DDoS-For-Hire Services" and included these comments:
Booter services such as those named in this action allegedly cause attacks on a wide array of victims in the United States and abroad, including financial institutions, universities, internet service providers, government systems, and various gaming platforms.
The action against the DDoS services comes the week before the Christmas holiday, a period historically plagued by prolific DDoS attacks in the gaming world.
On Dec. 19, pursuant to seizure warrants issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the FBI seized the domains of 15 booter services, which represent some of the world's leading DDoS-for-hire services.
Among these sites were critical-boot.com, ragebooter.com, downthem.org and quantumstress.net.
According to the affidavit in support of the warrant authorizing the seizure of the 15 websites, these services offered easy access to attack infrastructure, payment options that included Bitcoin, and were relatively low cost.
Each of the services was tested by the FBI, which verified those DDoS attack services offered through each of the seized websites.
While testing the various services, the FBI determined that these types of services can and have caused disruptions of networks at all levels.
Just when you thought all would nice and quiet we get this alarming news!
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