Federal authorities have seized the Internet domain names of numerous websites as part of an investigation into the sale of stolen personal information online and cyberattacks for pay.
In a statement from the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday, authorities said websites — including weleakinfo.to, ipstress.in and ovh-booter.com — were seized in a coordinated effort with the National Police Corps of the Netherlands and the Federal Police of Belgium
According to court documents, authorities said weleakinfo.to obtained more than 10,000 data breaches containing 7 billion indexed records, which included names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers phone and passwords for various online accounts.
Weleakinfo.to, whose domain was previously seized by the DOJ and federal authorities in January 2020, also sold subscription services allowing users to access the results of various data breaches.
The ipstress.in and ovh-booter.com websites also offered users Distributed Denial of Service attacks, a cyberattack technique that uses multiple internet-connected devices to overwhelm a server, rendering its target website inaccessible.
Authorities said users of seized websites will now find a banner notifying them of the law enforcement action.
“Today, the FBI and the Department put an end to two common and distressing threats: websites trafficking in stolen personal information and sites that attack and disrupt legitimate Internet businesses,” said the Washington District Attorney, DC, Matthew Graves, in a statement.
“Cybercrime often crosses national borders. Using strong working relationships with our international law enforcement partners, we will fight crimes like these that threaten privacy, security and commerce around the world,” Graves added.