Matthew Gatrel – Network Securitas

September 16, 2021

Trial Ends in Guilty Verdict for DDoS-for-Hire Boss

This post was originally published on this siteA jury in California today reached a guilty verdict in the trial of Matthew Gatrel, a St. Charles, Ill. man charged in 2018 with operating two online services that allowed paying customers to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Internet users and websites. Gatrel’s conviction comes roughly two weeks after his co-conspirator pleaded guilty to criminal charges related to running the services. The user interface for Downthem[.]org. Prosecutors for the Central District of California charged Gatrel, 32, and his business partner Juan “Severon” Martinez of Pasadena, Calif. with operating two DDoS-for-hire or […]

June 13, 2022

“Downthem” DDoS-for-Hire Boss Gets 2 Years in Prison

This post was originally published on this siteA 33-year-old Illinois man was sentenced to two years in prison today following his conviction last year for operating services that allowed paying customers to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against hundreds of thousands of Internet users and websites. The user interface for Downthem[.]org. Matthew Gatrel of St. Charles, Ill. was found guilty for violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) related to his operation of downthem[.]org and ampnode[.]com, two DDoS-for-hire services that had thousands of customers who paid to launch more than 200,000 attacks. Despite admitting to FBI agents […]

January 17, 2023

Thinking of Hiring or Running a Booter Service? Think Again.

This post was originally published on this siteMost people who operate DDoS-for-hire businesses attempt to hide their true identities and location. Proprietors of these so-called “booter” or “stresser” services — designed to knock websites and users offline — have long operated in a legally murky area of cybercrime law. But until recently, their biggest concern wasn’t avoiding capture or shutdown by the feds: It was minimizing harassment from unhappy customers or victims, and insulating themselves against incessant attacks from competing DDoS-for-hire services. And then there are booter store operators like John Dobbs, a 32-year-old computer science graduate student living in […]

May 9, 2023

Feds Take Down 13 More DDoS-for-Hire Services

This post was originally published on this site The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this week seized 13 domain names connected to “booter” services that let paying customers launch crippling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Ten of the domains are reincarnations of DDoS-for-hire services the FBI seized in December 2022, when it charged six U.S. men with computer crimes for allegedly operating booters. Booter services are advertised through a variety of methods, including Dark Web forums, chat platforms and even youtube.com. They accept payment via PayPal, Google Wallet, and/or cryptocurrencies, and subscriptions can range in price from just a few […]