DDoS Attacks Go Down 60% Across Europe Following WebStresser's Takedown

EXCLUSIVE —Link11, a DDoS mitigation firm, says that DDoS attacks fell 60% across Europe following the takedown of WebStresser, the largest DDoS-for-hire portal on the market.

The service was taken down last week, on April 24, when several law enforcement agencies across Europe, under Europol coordination, seized servers, arrested suspects, and shut down the website WebStresser.org, a popular portal where Internet users would go to register, pay for accounts, and launch DDoS attacks against other websites.

Takedowns of DDoS-for-hire services make temporary dents

In a report that Link11 plans to publish later today on its website, the company said that WebStresser's takedown had a significant impact on DDoS activity, especially across Europe.

"The Link11 Security Operation Center (LSOC), which monitors DDoS attack activity on the internet 24/7, has registered lower attack activity, especially on April 25 and 26, presumably due to [the] elimination of the source," a Link11 spokesperson says.

"The LSOC has seen a roughly 60% decline in DDoS attacks on targets in Europe, [...] down 64% from the peak number recorded," he said.

Onur Cengiz, Head of the Link11 Security Operation Center, says the slowdown in DDoS attacks is only temporary, and he anticipates attacks to ramp up as new DDoS services rise to fill the gap created by WebStresser's abrupt demise.

WebStresser was the most popular DDoS-for-hire service

Europol said WebStresser had over 136,000 registered users at the time it was shut down and had been responsible for over 4 million DDoS attacks in recent years. Prices for a WebStresser premium account that had access to the DDoS feature started as low as €15 ($18.25).

The service was by far the most popular DDoS booter (also known as DDoS stresser) service on the market, also receiving top billing in Google searches for "DDoS booter" or "DDoS stresser" keywords.

The service was supposedly run by a Serbian 19-year-old named Jovan "m1rk" Mirkovic.

According to the Link11 DDoS Report for Q4 2017, Europe had seen approximately 13,452 DDoS attacks in the last three months of 2017, totaling 1,675 hours combined, with the largest reaching 70.1 Gbps. The Link11 report cited a 116% rise in DDoS attacks.