Europol has sent emails to more than 75.000 alleged cybercriminals who paid a service to carry out cyberattacks that take down websites.
On Thursday, Europol announced a coordinated operation against several DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) for-hire services, which allow crooks to carry out cyberattacks without the need for hacking skills, and without their own tools.
Part of this action, called Operation PowerOFF, involved Europol sending warning emails and letters to more than 75.000 people suspected of using these DDoS-for-hire services.
Europol said it obtained information about the alleged cybercriminals through raids and seizures of servers running these services, which allowed authorities to identify their registered users.
The action also resulted in four arrests, the removal of 53 domains and the execution of 24 search warrants by the police.
DDoS attacks remain relatively common due to their ability to cause disruption, while being relatively easy to execute, especially when such services are available for rent.
Last year, Cloudflare said it blocked what it called the largest DDoS attack to date, which reached 29,7 terabits per second. In recent years, the FBI has conducted several operations against DDoS-for-hire services.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
