Europe has become a hub for cyber crimes ranging from online child abuse platforms to DDoS-for-hire services and dark web marketplaces being operated from the continent. At the same time, law enforcement authorities are doing what’s possible to tackle the issue.
The Dutch police have been very vocal about its efforts to take down online DDoS-for-hire services and in the past six months, they have successfully seized several such platforms.
In its latest press release, the Dutch Police has confirmed to have seized around 15 DDoS-for-hire services in only a single week.
DDoS-for-hire services offer DDoS stressors or DDoS boosters through which the service providers facilitate users in launching DDoS attacks against digital platforms and websites.
The operation was part of an extensive crackdown against DDoS service providers in which the Dutch Police was supported by the Europol, Interpol, the FBI, web hosting services, domain registrars and managed to take down many well-established websites. The names of the services taken down last week haven’t been revealed by the authorities.
According to the Dutch law enforcement authorities, some of the websites may reappear on new domains, for which the police are already prepared to respond to.
Furthermore, Dutch police have arrested the primary suspect in the DDoS attacks against two of the country’s main information access and document portals for citizens- MijnOveheidnl and Overheidnl, launched on March 19, 2020. The attacker turned out to be a 19-year old man residing in Breda. The attacker will be facing The Hague magistrate and will be charged with a criminal offense.
This, however, is not the first time when Dutch Police has shut down 15 DDoS-for-hire websites. In December 2018, authorities successfully shut down 15 such sites including:
anonsecurityteamcom
booterninja bullstressernet
critical-bootcom
defconpro
defianceprotocolcom
downthemorg
layer7-stresserxyz
netstressorg
quantumstressnet
ragebootercom
requestrip
str3ssedme
torsecurityteamorg
vbooterorg
Nevertheless, Dutch Police along with law enforcement authorities around the world have also sized and taken down several other cybercrime platforms along with arresting culprits. Here is a list of some of those platforms:
Romanian iPhone gang stealing gang
Dark web data center in former NATO bunker
DeepDotWeb, Wall St and Valhalla marketplaces
If you are aware of a cyber crime happening around you report it to Europol or the FBI right now.
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