The National Crime Agency (NCA) in the UK has successfully infiltrated and disrupted the underground criminal marketplace known as digitalstress.su. This marketplace was responsible for hiring out infrastructure to conduct distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, leading to tens of thousands of cyber attacks worldwide.
In collaboration with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the NCA was able to arrest one of the suspected controllers of the site in July 2024 and take full control of the website, disabling its functionality. Digitalstress.su was registered on the USSR web domain, which is still operational and administered from Russia. Many cyber criminals use this domain under the false belief that it protects them from law enforcement.
The NCA’s efforts, part of Operation PowerOff, have exposed the vulnerability of such domains and their ability to be exploited to prevent criminal activity and identify those responsible. They have accessed communication platforms used to plan DDoS attacks, gathering data on users for future law enforcement actions. Information on individuals outside the UK has been shared with relevant authorities.
The NCA warns that booter services, which allow individuals with limited technical skills to commit cyber crimes, are not safe from law enforcement. Deputy director Paul Foster emphasized that their innovative tools and techniques are disrupting cyber criminal activities and protecting people in the UK. Collaboration with law enforcement partners is key to disrupting cyber criminals who use technology to cause harm.
DDoS-for-hire, also known as booter services, enable users to launch attacks on websites and infrastructure easily. While these attacks can cause disruption, they are not typically considered difficult to manage and rarely result in lasting damage. However, they are illegal under the Computer Misuse Act of 1990 due to their potential to harm businesses, public services, and critical infrastructure.