Law enforcement agencies continue to target DDoS-for-hire services, with Europol announcing more takedowns and arrests this week.
For years, law enforcement authorities in North America, Europe and the APAC region have worked together to disrupt services that enable anyone to launch DDoS attacks against specified online services. These DDoS-for-hire services, also known as booter services, enable users to disrupt a website, in some cases for just a few dollars.
Dozens of such websites have been shut down over the past years and several individuals have been arrested as part of an operation dubbed PowerOFF.
The latest action was announced by Europol on Wednesday. According to the agency, six more DDoS attack websites have been shut down, namely Cfxapi, Cfxsecurity, Neostress, Jetstress, Quickdown and Zapcut.
These services have been used between 2022 and 2025 to conduct attacks against gaming platforms, businesses, government organizations and schools.
In addition to the takedowns, four individuals accused of running a network of platforms used for thousands of DDoS attacks have been arrested in Poland.
In addition to Poland, authorities in the Netherlands, US and Germany were involved in this operation.
The United States has shut down nine domains associated with DDoS platforms, and Dutch authorities created fake booter services to warn those looking for such sites of the potential repercussions.
Dutch authorities also contributed to the arrest of the four individuals in Poland by providing Polish authorities with data from seized booter websites hosted in the Netherlands.
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