European police send email to 75,000 people asking them to stop DDoS attacks

A coalition of law enforcement agencies around the world has sent emails to more than 75,000 suspected cybercriminals who have paid to launch an attack that can bring down websites.

Thursday, Europol announced a joint venture against multitasking resistance (DDoS) rental services, which allow criminals to launch cyber attacks without the need to have hacking skills, or the need to operate their own equipment.

Another part of the law – called Operation PowerOFF – involved Europol sending warning emails and letters to more than 75,000 people suspected of using these DDoS-for-hire services.

Europol said it obtained information about suspected criminals by hacking and seizing the servers associated with these services, allowing police to identify their subscribers.

This resulted in four arrests, the removal of 53 domains, and the issuance of 24 search warrants.

DDoS attacks remain common due to their ability to cause chaos while being relatively easy to carry out, partly because they are a freelance activity. Last year, Cloudflare said it had limited it what he called the biggest DDoS attack to date, which registered a rate of 29.7 terabits per second. In the last few years, the FBI has done it several work against DDoS-for-hire services.