An international action against services selling distributed denial-of-service attacks combined enforcement with warnings to users, Europol reported on 16 April. The operation involved 21 countries and resulted in four arrests, 53 domain takedowns and 25 searches.
Authorities also contacted more than 75,000 identified users through warning letters or emails. That figure refers to people targeted by preventive messaging, not to arrests. DDoS-for-hire services can disrupt businesses and public services by overwhelming online systems. The action is part of Operation PowerOFF, which seeks to reduce both the supply of such services and demand for them. The reported takedowns represent a disruption of particular infrastructure, rather than proof that the wider market for attacks has disappeared.