The world’s largest paid service for DDOS attacks has been taken down by police in a joint effort between US, UK and the Netherlands. The agencies have arrested the site administrators who are from Australia and Hong Kong.
The action was performed by police under the code name “Operation Power Off” targeting WebStresser.org
“The damage of these attacks is substantial,” said the Dutch National Police in a Reddit thread about the takedown. “Victims are out of business for a period of time, and spend money on mitigation and on (other) security measures.”
It was found that a 19-year old Serbian used his Facebook account to openly discuss his role in WebStresser with his last post on April 3rd, a day before the takedown. Mirkovic alias m1rk openly discussed his role in programming the WebStresser.
“Prevention of re-offending by offering a combination of restorative justice, training, coaching and positive alternatives is the main aim of this project,” the Dutch Police wrote. “See page 24 of the 5th European Cyber Security Perspectives and stay tuned on our THTC twitter account #HackRight! AND we are working on a media campaign to prevent youngsters from starting to commit cyber crimes in the first place. Expect a launch soon.”
WebStresser had made it easy to knock websites offline with prices being as cheap as $15 dollars.
Whilst the police are saying this as a major victory, there is a good reason to be cautious. It doesn’t take a lot of effort from these developers to start a new service like this, especially if you can wield botnets that will do the hard work.
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