A pair of Israeli teenagers who ran an online distributed denial of service (DDoS) cybercrime operation has been arrested by FBI.
DDoS Cybercrime Operation
Brian Krebs reported on the website krebsonsecurity.com that the two Israeli teens have run an online cybercrime operation called vDOS. Their online service helped hackers to carry out DDoS attacks against various sites. The Marker reports that shortly after Kreb's investigative article has been published, Itay Huri and Yarden Bidani were arrested by Israel police in connection with an FBI investigation into their DDoS-for-hire cybercrime operation.
According to The Verge, the vDOS online service allowed wannabe hackers to choose from various subscription options, depending on how long they wanted the attacks to run. The subscription fees were requested in the digital currency Bitcoin. The pair of Israeli teenagers launched over 150,000 cyberattacks in the past two years and reportedly earned over $600,000 for their services.
Network World reports that after the alleged owners of the vDOS service were arrested following the exposure by security journalist Brian Krebs, a massive cyberattack was launched against the Krebs on Security site. The website was hit on Friday, Sept. 9, by a heavy denial-of-service attack containing "godiefaggot" as the single message in each attack packet. The cyberattack spiked at almost 140 Gbps.
vDOS Operators Were Lax About OPSEC
The two Israeli hackers had bad OPSEC and did not take much precaution about protecting their identities. When the pair published a technical paper pdf on various DDoS attack methods, Bidani was using a Gmail address which linked back to being a vDOS administrator and Huri was using his real name.
Bidani, aka "AppleJ4ck," had also discussed DDoS attacks on his Facebook page. Huri, aka "P1st," used his phone number for the vDOS site registration records as well as for receiving text messages from vDOS customers who opened support tickets. Their lax OPSEC precautions have certainly made it easier to be tracked down by the Israeli police in connection with the FBI investigation into their cybercrime operation.
