NightmareStresser, one of the world’s longest-running distributed denial of service (DDoS) services, has been disrupted.
The US Department of Justice announced this week that the FBI had seized the Internet domains associated with the booter service.
visitors too nightmare-stresser(.)com And nightmaresresser(.)org Now you will be served with a confiscation banner.
Authorities said NightmareStresser has been active since at least 2022 and has been used to launch hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks against victims worldwide.
However, security researcher Alex Carter reported Last year it was announced that NightmareStresser was likely founded in 2016, became popular in 2018 after disrupting competing services, and became the largest DDoS tool in 2019.
By 2025, it had grown to nearly 1 million users. It could launch between 3,000 and 4,000 attacks per hour, accepting cryptocurrency payments but avoiding government, educational and hospital domains.
NightmareStresser’s shutdown was part of Operation PowerOFF, a coordinated global effort to dismantle DDoS-for-hire infrastructure worldwide and hold those behind these services accountable.
DDoS-for-hire services, also known as booters or stressers, have proliferated in recent years because they present low barriers to entry for would-be cybercriminals, the U.S. Department of Justice notes.
Over the past eight years, the US has indicted 12 DDoS attack facilitators and seized over 100 domains associated with booter services.
In April, law enforcement authorities in 21 countries took down 53 domains related to DDoS-for-hire services. Last year, the US destroyed the DDoS botnet RapperBot and in 2024 it seized 27 websites linked to booter services.
In addition to disrupting the DDoS-for-hire infrastructure, law enforcement agencies have pursued and charged both the administrators and users of these services.
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