The Silicon Review ^Asia

Recently, the Dutch police have taken a major step to deal with international cybercriminals by shutting down the world's biggest DDoS-for-hire service. Helping cybercriminals to launch over 4 million DDoS attacks, the administrators of the service were arrested and are facing serious punishments.

Tagged a "Power Off", the entire operation was led by the  National Crime Agency (NCA) of UK and the Dutch Police, with the support of Europol and a dozen other law enforcement agencies. The operation was successful and resulted in the arrest of 6 members of the group behind the "webstresser.org" website in Scotland, Croatia, Canada and Serbia on Tuesday.

Webstresser.org has got over 136,000 registered users. To launch Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks with little or no technical knowledge, the service lets its customers rent a DDoS attack service for about £10.

Also responsible for cyber attacks against seven of the UK's biggest banks in November last year, as well as government institutions and gaming industry, the notorious 'DDoS-for-Hire' Service has created havoc in the cyberspace.

"With webstresser.org, any registered user could pay a nominal fee using online payment systems or cryptocurrencies to rent out the use of stressers and booters," Europol said.

Now, Webstresser.org has been shut down, and the complete infrastructure has been seized in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States. Now, the website reads, “The law enforcement authorities had taken the service offline”.

Also, the police have reminded people that DDoSing is a crime, for which the "penalties can be severe." If anyone conducts a DDoS attack, or make, supply or obtain any DDoS attack service, he/she will end up in prison, and fine or both.