Webstresser offered a form of cyberattack known as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), in which a target website is overwhelmed by requests for access. The target, be they an online bank or a secondary school’s portal for students, can seize up and crash, unless the attack is blocked. Investigators say that the gang sold cyberattacks for as little as USD 14.99, meaning that anyone who wanted to attack a web service could do so with little chance of being traced.
The site was used by a British suspect to attack high street banks in 2017, causing hundreds of thousands of pounds of damage, the online publication continues. Seven suspected members of the group behind webstresser.org were arrested or subject to searches in the Netherlands, Serbia, Croatia and Canada, with support from Scotland Police, Europol and US authorities.
The Dutch police completed the operation by identifying the location of the website’s servers and seizing them, replacing the site with a page announcing that law enforcement agencies had taken the service offline.
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