Joint international operation targets young users of DDoS cyber-attack tools

From 5 to 9 December 2016, Europol and law enforcement authorities from Australia, Belgium, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States carried out a coordinated action targeting users of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) cyber-attack tools, leading to 34 arrests and 101 suspects interviewed and cautioned.
 
Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) supported the countries in their efforts to identify suspects in the EU and beyond, mainly young adults under the age of 20, by hosting operational meetings, collating intelligence and providing analytical support. The participating countries worked together in the framework of the EMPACT (European Multidisciplinary Platform against Criminal Threats) project targeting cyber-attacks that affect critical infrastructure and information systems in the EU. During the action week, different measures were taken depending on national legislation: suspects were interviewed, detained and arrested or fined, notifications were sent to parents and house searches were conducted, among others.

The individuals arrested are suspected of paying for stressers and booters services to maliciously deploy software to launch DDoS attacks, which flood websites and web servers with massive amount of data, leaving them inaccessible to users. The tools used are part of the criminal ‘DDoS for hire’ facilities for which hackers can pay and aim it at targets at their choosing.

Steven Wilson, Head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), commented: “Today’s....

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