Feds Charge Three in Mass Seizure of Attack-for-hire Services
Summary: U.S. authorities charged three men and seized 15 booter and stresser domains in what a federal prosecutor called the largest simultaneous seizure of booter service domains, with seizure notices from the Justice Department and FBI appearing on sites including downthem[.]org and quantumstresser[.]net. Prosecutors allege Downthem served about 2,000 customers against more than 200,000 targets, while Quantum Stresser had over 80,000 subscriptions and was used in over 50,000 actual or attempted attacks during 2018.
Key Takeaway: The government tested each service it seized, buying attacks against its own test servers, and is now arguing that running a booter is itself illegal and that borrowing third-party devices for reflective amplification is wire fraud - a template aimed at the operators behind 80,000-subscription services, not just their customers.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
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- Cybercrime & Law Enforcement
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