The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) this week announced the seizure of 48 domains associated with the DDoS-for-Hire Service platforms (aka Booter services) used by threat actors.
The authorities charged six suspects, Jeremiah Sam Evans Miller (23), Angel Manuel Colon Jr. (37), Shamar Shattock (19), Cory Anthony Palmer (22), John M. Dobbs (32), and Joshua Laing (32), for running the platforms.
The defendants have been charged with conspiracy to violate and violating the computer fraud and abuse act related to the alleged operation of a booter service.
The websites seized by the feds were used to launch millions of actual or attempted DDoS attacks targeting victims worldwide. The customers paid the platforms to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service attacks against their target websites.
The services were involved in attacks against millions of individuals and organizations in multiple industries, including educational institutions, government agencies, and gaming platforms.
The suspects offered the services claiming they were legitimate “stresser” services that could be used by organizations for network testing. However, an affidavit filed in support of court-authorized warrants to seize the booter sites revealed that “thousands of communications between booter site administrators and their customers…make clear that both parties are aware that the customer is not attempting to attack their own computers.”
