FBI Seizes Three Domains Used for Data Trading and DDoS-for-Hire Services

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Department of Justice have announced the seizure of three domains that criminals used to sell stolen personal data and offer DDoS-for-hire services. The domains—weleakinfo.to, ipstress.in, and ovh-booter.com—were seized as part of a joint operation. During this operation, the Dutch National Police and the Belgian Federal Police arrested the main suspect, conducted several searches, and took control of the hackers’ main infrastructure. The identity of the arrested suspect has not yet been disclosed.

The domain weleakinfo.to sold subscriptions that allowed users to search a database containing information stolen from over 10,000 data breaches (about 7 billion records). The combined database included full names, phone numbers, usernames, email addresses, and passwords.

The other two domains, ipstress.in and ovh-booter.com, were used for DDoS-for-hire services, where clients could pay to launch large-scale DDoS attacks against websites or platforms.

It’s worth noting that in early 2020, the domain WeLeakInfo.com was also seized in a joint operation involving the FBI and law enforcement agencies from Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom. After the domain was taken down, two men who operated the service were arrested in the Netherlands and Northern Ireland.

Like WeLeakInfo.to, this service offered users access to data from more than 12.5 billion accounts collected from 10,000 different breaches. For a fee, the site provided access to people’s passwords in plain text. Access cost as little as $2 per day, $7 per week, or $24 per month.

Last year, one of the operators of WeLeakInfo.com was sentenced to two years in prison.