Authorities seize domain names after probe into sales of stolen personal information

Federal authorities have seized the internet domain names of numerous websites amid an investigation into the sale of stolen personal information online and cyberattacks for hire.

In a Department of Justice (DOJ) statement on Wednesday, authorities said that the websites — including weleakinfo.to, ipstress.in and ovh-booter.com — were seized in a coordinated effort with the National Police Corps of the Netherlands and the Federal Police of Belgium

According to court documents, authorities said that weleakinfo.to had obtained more than 10,000 data breaches containing 7 billion indexed records, which included names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers and passwords for various online accounts. 

Weleakinfo.to, whose domain was previously seized by the DOJ and federal authorities in January 2020, also sold subscription services for users to access the results of various data breaches.

The ipstress.in and ovh-booter.com websites also offered users distributed denial of service attacks, a cyberattack technique that uses multiple internet-enabled devices to overwhelm a server, making its target website inaccessible.

Authorities said users of the seized websites will now find a banner notifying them of the law enforcement action.

“Today, the FBI and the Department stopped two distressingly common threats: websites trafficking in stolen personal information and sites which attack and disrupt legitimate internet businesses,” Washington, D.C., District Attorney Matthew Graves said in a statement. 

 “Cyber crime often crosses national borders. Using strong working relationships with our international law enforcement partners, we will address crimes like these that threaten privacy, security, and commerce around the globe,” Graves added.