Η Europol closed the webσελίδα WebStresser, an online service where users could register and launch DDoS attacks after paying a monthly fee, with prices starting at 15 euros.
The site was considered as the largest DDoS service that one could rent and attack anyone who wanted. 136.000 registered 2017 users over 4. Europol stated that WebStresser was responsible for over XNUMX million DDoS attacks in recent years.
Visitors to WebStresser.org will now see a notification stating that the site has been confiscated as well as a huge "Operation Power Off" sign, which is the name of the business that closed the site.
Operation Power Off is a coordinated effort by the police of the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Serbia, Croatia, Spain, Italy, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States of America. , and in cooperation with Europol.
In addition to closing the site, the authorities said they also arrested its administrators residing in the United Kingdom, Croatia, Canada and Serbia. They also took over the WebStresser server infrastructure in the Netherlands, the US and Germany.
Europol added that "further action has been taken" against the site's top users, who have carried out the most attacks in recent years. Police did not say what the measures were, but said the users were in the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Croatia, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong.
WebStresser started its "operation" in 2015. It was initially a small service, but evolved over the years. The service gradually and over the years offered support for a variety of DDoS types of attacks, had a corresponding mobile application (from which users could launch attacks), accepted payments via PayPal and Bitcoin and advertised their services in forums hacking and social media.
The service has become extremely popular in recent years, and is the first result that Google returns as a search result when searching for related terms such as "DDoS booter" or "DDoS stresser".
WebStresser also had a very active one Facebook page, where it regularly asked users to post positive reviews of the site, and “rewarded” users with free access in service for one month. There have been 2.450 YouTube videos with the WebStresser report so far.
The Facebook page also featured messages from WebStresser administrators announcing outages, maintenance, or even discussing what kind of services users wanted. In many messages, the administrators made the mistake of revealing the names of their hosting providers. For example, a Facebook post revealed that WebStresser hosts servers on the Deutscher Commercial Internet Exchange (DE-CIX), a well-known German centre data located in Frankfurt. However, Europol said that servers in Germany were seized.
Despite the closure of the largest and most popular DDoS promoter, there are many other similar services available online, many of which are apparent in a simple search on Google. Logically like WebStresser had taken vDoS users when it was closed, so now the DDoS attack rental market is moving to another provider that will offer similar services. Since there is money it will be hard to stop this cycle of illegal service.
