Tag Archives: ddos-for-hire

250 Webstresser Users to Face Legal Action

February 1, 2019

More than 250 customers of a popular and powerful online attack-for-hire service that was dismantled by authorities in 2018 are expected to face legal action for the damage they caused, according to Europol, the European Union’s law enforcement agency.

In April 2018, investigators in the U.S., U.K. and the Netherlands took down attack-for-hire service WebStresser[.]org and arrested its alleged administrators. Prior to the takedown, the service had more than 151,000 registered users and was responsible for launching some four million attacks over three years.

Now, those same authorities are targeting people who paid the service to conduct attacks.

Alleged ‘Satori’ IoT Botnet Operator Sought Media Spotlight, Got Indicted

September 2, 2018

A 20-year-old from Vancouver, Washington was indicted last week on federal hacking charges and for allegedly operating the “Satori” botnet, a malware strain unleashed last year that infected hundreds of thousands of wireless routers and other “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices. This outcome is hardly surprising given that the accused’s alleged alter ego has been relentless in seeking media attention for this global crime machine.

Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm Author?

January 18, 2017

On September 22, 2016, this site was forced offline for nearly four days after it was hit with “Mirai,” a malware strain that enslaves poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices like wireless routers and security cameras into a botnet for use in large cyberattacks. Roughly a week after that assault, the individual(s) who launched that attack — using the name “Anna Senpai” — released the source code for Mirai, spawning dozens of copycat attack armies online.

After months of digging, KrebsOnSecurity is now confident to have uncovered Anna Senpai’s real-life identity, and the identity of at least one co-conspirator who helped to write and modify the malware.

Israeli Online Attack Service ‘vDOS’ Earned $600,000 in Two Years

September 8, 2016

vDOS — a so-called “booter” service that has earned in excess of $600,000 over the past two years helping customers coordinate more than 150,000 so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks designed to knock Web sites offline — has been massively hacked, spilling secrets about tens of thousands of paying customers and their targets.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com at the end of July 2016, points to two young men in Israel as the principle owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com, points to two young men in Israel as the principle owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com, points to two young men in Israel as the principle owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.

Stress-Testing the Booter Services, Financially

August 17, 2015

The past few years have witnessed a rapid proliferation of cheap, Web-based services that troublemakers can hire to knock virtually any person or site offline for hours on end. Such services succeed partly because they’ve enabled users to pay for attacks with PayPal. But a collaborative effort by PayPal and security researchers has made it far more difficult for these services to transact with their would-be customers.