U.S. Justice Department Seizes 13 DDoS-for-hire Domains

The U.S. Justice Department seized 13 domains responsible for DDoS-for-hire services, sometimes called “stressor” or “booter” services. These services outsource the work of hacking to those with the resources and skills to do so (as well as access to the necessary botnets) for as little as $10 per hour.

The removal of these 13 sites means 13 fewer resources for bad actors to attack businesses and organizations, and is part of a larger program known as Operation PowerOFF:

“As part of an ongoing initiative targeting computer attack ‘booter’ services, the Justice Department today announced the court-authorized seizure of 13 internet domains associated with these DDoS-for-hire services … The seizures this week are the third wave of U.S. law enforcement actions against prominent booter services that allowed paying users to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks that flood targeted computers with information and prevent them from being able to access the internet.”

It’s not all great news. While these 13 sites are off the table, ten of them were built from domains taken down in previous raids, including an operation that removed 48 domains. One of these sites was virtually identical: cyberstress.us became cyberstress.org.

You can find a list of the 13 domains below, courtesy of the FBI: