The world’s biggest online marketplace selling Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS)  attacks has been taken down by an international police operation. The illegal service was shut down and its’ infrastructure seized in the Netherlands, United States and Germany.

Considered the worlds biggest marketplace for DDoS services, Webstresser.org has over 136,000 registered users and has been responsible for four million attacks. Attacks enabled by the site targeted critical online services offered by government institutions, police forces and world banks.

The administrators of the DDoS marketplace were arrested on 24th of April as a result of Operation Power Off, which was led by Dutch Police, the UK’s National Crime Agency, Europol and other law enforcement agencies from around the world.

The administrators were located in a host of countries, including the United Kingdom, Croatia, Serbia and Canada. Users of the marketplace were also targeted in the police operation, with arrests being made in the UK, Italy, Spain, Australia and Hong Kong.

Damaging Effects

DDoS attacks are highly damaging to businesses and government institutions and involve an attacker remotely controlling connected devices to direct large amounts of traffic toward a website or online platform. The traffic in turn eats up a website’s bandwidth, consumes essential resources and overwhelms servers, either slowing them down beyond the point of usability or knocking them completely offline.

To launch a DDoS in the past, an attacker had to be fairly well-versed in internet technology. That is no longer the case. Nowadays sites such as Webstresser allow users to pay a small fee, using online payment systems – or even cryptocurrencies, to rent out the DDoS services. Some of the fees on offer were as low as €15 per month; opening cyber attacks up to almost any user.

DDoS attacks are a criminal offence, and if caught the penalties can be severe. Conducting a DDoS attack or making, supplying or obtaining stresser or booter services could result in a custodial sentence, a fine or both.

International Cooperation

Europol says that international police cooperation was central to the success of this investigation as the scale of the operation was global. With administrators, users and critical infrastructure located around the world, cooperation from multiple police forces was essential to successfully catch the culprits.

Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) supported the investigation from the beginning by facilitating the exchange of intelligence between the several police services. A command and coordination post was established at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague to effectively communicate between each police force.

Steven Wilson, Head of EC3 claims that DDoS attacks are a growing problem, but with international cooperation the issue can be effectively tackled and the culprits brought to justice. He said: “It’s a growing problem and one we take very seriously. Criminals are very good at collaborating, victimising millions of users in a moment from anywhere in the world.

“We need to collaborate as good as them with our international partners to turn the table on these criminals and shut down their malicious cyberattacks.”

Jaap van Oss, Dutch Chairman of J-CAT says that “international law enforcement will not tolerate these illegal services” and that police around the world will continue to pursue its administrators and users. He continued by praising the cooperation between police forces and said: “This joint operation is yet another successful example of the ongoing international effort against these destructive cyber attacks.”