- Europol announced to close multiple stress/bootes -services in the EU
- Four people were arrested in Poland
- Law enforcement in the Netherlands, Germany, USA and Poland participated in Operation Poweroff
Law enforcement has dismantled a larger DDOS-to-rent operation and arrested four people suspected of driving it.
In a press release, the international police force said the arrests were part of Operation Poweroff, an ongoing effort targeting the infrastructure behind DDOS-For-Rent activity.
Polish authorities arrested four people suspected of running multiple stresses/boot services: CFXAPI, CFXSECURITY, NEOSTRESS, JETTRESS, QUICKDOWN AND ZAPCUT.
Chats leaked
These services are believed to have facilitated “widespread attacks on schools, public services, businesses and game platforms” between 2022 and 2025.
They contained a “smooth” interface that lowered the barrier to entry: Users did not need any special technical knowledge to mount an attack. All they needed was to know the victim’s IP address and to have € 10 to pay for the attack (costs would increase depending on the desired length of the attack).
As part of the efforts, Dutch authorities implemented fake booting sites designed to warn users looking for DDOS-for-Hire services. They also seized data from Boots Website hosting data centers in the Netherlands, giving their partners crucial information needed to make arrests.
In the United States, police seized nine domains associated with boot services, and in Germany, police identified one of the suspects. Europol said it provided analytical and operational support throughout the investigation.
The difference between usual DDOS Botnets and stresses/boot services is that DDOS botnet is usually run by a single threat actor who is also working to expand the botnet by implementing back doors and malware.
Stress/Boots services are advertised on the other side as a white hat solution that offers a “legitimate” service to test the resilience of a network or site. In most cases, however, these are just coverage for obvious illegal activities, which is why law enforcement usually shuts them down.
Via Infosecurity Magazine
