To stop people from buying services to launch DDoS attacks, European law enforcement has decided to message over 75,000 suspected culprits, telling them to knock it off.
Europol announced the measure as part of a new crackdown on DDoS attack services, which let buyers unleash torrents of online traffic to take down a website, server, or other online service.
Europol has gone after DDoS attack buyers before. But this time, the agency identified over 75,000 users of such services following operations aimed at shutting them down. This has included seizing domains and databases that contain customer information.
“With over 75 000 warning emails and letters being sent to identified criminal users and 4 arrests, the action week also led to the takedown of 53 domains and the issuing of 25 search warrants,” Europol says. The announcement also notes that European investigators uncovered data on over 3 million criminal user accounts from past seizures of databases linked to DDoS attack services.
(Credit: Europol)
The US Justice Department also participated in the crackdown, saying it had seized “eight DDoS-for-hire domains, including ‘Vac Stresser’ and ‘Mythical Stress,’ which both purport to launch tens of thousands of DDoS attacks per day.”
Although people sometimes buy DDoS services to merely boot rival gamers, the attacks can also be used to extort and disrupt major businesses, costing them a fortune in web hosting fees to deal with the flood of internet traffic.
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The DOJ adds that “DDoS services, such as those named in this action, allegedly attacked a wide array of victims in the United States and abroad, including schools, government agencies, gaming platforms, critical infrastructure, including Department of War resources, and millions of people.”
(Credit: Europol)
DDoS-for-hire sites can advertise on the open web and in forums, marketing themselves as stress-testing services. In response, Europol and Homeland Security Investigations have been placing ads on search engines, including Google, to warn people against buying them.
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Michael Kan
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I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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