The US Department of Justice has dimensioned the domains of 13 DDoS-for-hire services as part of an ongoing initiative to combat the Internet threat.
The providers of these illegal service platforms describe them as “booter” or “stressor” services that allow site operators to test the robustness and stability of their infrastructure. Almost, if not all, are frequented by people seeking revenge on sites they dislike or that promote extortion, bribes, or other forms of bribery.
The international law enforcement initiative is known as Operation PowerOFF. In December, federal authorities seized another 48 domains. Ten of them returned with new domains, many very similar to their previous names.
“Ten of the 13 domains seized today are reincarnations of services seized in a previous December sweep that targeted 48 top booter services,” the Justice Department said. “For example, one of the domains seized this week, cyberstress.org, appears to be the same service operated under the cyberstress.us domain, which was seized in December. While many of the previously disrupted startup services have not returned, today’s action reflects law enforcement’s commitment to targeting those operators who have chosen to continue their criminal activities.”
According to a seizure order filed in federal court, the FBI used live accounts available through the services to take down high-capacity bandwidth sites under FBI control.
“The FBI has tested all of the services associated with the SUBJECT DOMAINS, meaning agents or other personnel have visited each of the websites and used previous credentials or registered a new account on the service to launch attacks,” the FBI wrote. Special Agent Elliott Peterson in the statement. “I believe that each of the SUBJECT DOMAINS is used to facilitate attacks against unwitting victims to prevent the victims from accessing the Internet, to disconnect the victim from or degrade communication with existing Internet connections, or to cause other similar harm.”
The Justice Department also said in Monday’s announcement that four of the defendants charged in December had pleaded guilty earlier this year. Those defendants and their pleas are:
- Jeremiah Sam Evans Miller, aka “John The Dev,” 23, of San Antonio, Texas, pleaded guilty on April 6 to conspiracy and violating the computer fraud and abuse law in connection with the operation of a startup service called RoyalStresser .com (formerly known as Supremesecurityteam.com);
- Angel Manuel Colon Jr., aka “Anonghost720” and “Anonghost1337,” 37, of Belleview, Florida, pleaded guilty on Feb. 13 to conspiracy and violating the computer fraud and abuse law in connection with the operation of a startup service called SecurityTeam.io;
- Shamar Shattock, 19, of Margate, Florida, pleaded guilty March 22 to conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse in connection with the operation of a booter service known as Astrostress.com; And
- Cory Anthony Palmer, 23, of Lauderhill, Florida, pleaded guilty on Feb. 16 to conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse in connection with the operation of a startup service known as Booter.sx.
DDoS refers to distributed denial-of-service attacks, where hundreds of thousands of sites simultaneously send a deluge of junk traffic to a particular site to cause it to “deny service” for normal users.
