“Operation Power Off”, run by international police officers, has been running since 2022, shutting down websites that offer illegal offers. This week there was a new breakthrough: two people aged 19 and 28 were arrested in Hesse. He is accused of operating both a drug marketplace called “FlightRCS” and a DDoS platform called “Dstat.cc” on the open Internet (Clearweb). The latter is said to offer overload attacks on third-party infrastructure as “DDoS-as-a-Service”. Both domains were seized.
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Electronic patient records: Concerns remain about data security and initial goalswas in charge of the Loud campaign Notice from BKA the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT), the Frankfurt Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Hessian State Criminal Police Office. However, international officials are also involved in Operation Power Off; The logo of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) can be found along with other offices on the seizure banner. The BKA has not yet provided any details about the investigation. However, “extensive evidence is said to have been secured”. It is also unlikely that the two men operated the platform alone.
Medicines for vape pens
However, the Federal Criminal Police Office provides information about criminal activities on two platforms. FlighRCS is said to mainly sell synthetic drugs based on cannabinoids. According to the BKA, these are becoming increasingly popular among young people for consumption through vaporization devices (vape pens). The comparison with the actual “Shiny Flex” case in Germany is obvious.
What the two accused are said to have done with DStat.cc is apparently more complex. BKA describes the service as a “central viewing platform” for DDoS services. Various options for making third party servers inaccessible are said to have been listed by the accused as a comparison portal. This in turn is reminiscent of a similar case as part of Operation Power Off in 2022. At the time, plaintiffs said they had only offered comparisons to “stressful services”, among other things.
DDoS as a service
However, officials strongly denied this: the service was said to have “made it possible for any low-skilled person to launch DDoS attacks with a mouse click that take down entire websites and networks,” Europol said. In the current case, the BKA says: “The platform made it possible for a wide range of users to carry out their own DDoS attacks, even without deep technical skills.”
Such offers are also known as “DDoS booters”. Only six months ago, another similar case became public, in which Saxon police websites were allegedly attacked using a booter’s tools in 2023.
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Electronic patient records: Concerns remain about data security and initial goals
