Online DDoS service vDOS hacked, spills details of its customers and targets

Customers of server “stressing” service may now be feeling the stress themselves…

Graham Cluley
Graham Cluley
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Krebs on Security writes:

vDOS – a “booter” service that has earned in excess of $600,000 over the past two years helping customers coordinate more than 150,000 so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks designed to knock Web sites offline – has been massively hacked, spilling secrets about tens of thousands of paying customers and their targets.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com at the end of July 2016, points to two young men in Israel as the principal owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.

If information about vDOS’s customers falls into the hands of law enforcement that could prove to be a little… ummm… uncomfortable for those paying to knock innocent websites offline without the permission of their owners.

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Chances are that many of vDOS’s customers may have imagine that their details would have been kept private, and that there would have been little risk of their identities being discovered. That belief was clearly misguided.

Security blogger Brian Krebs has the full story, including how for years vDOS used PayPal to launder its ill-gotten gains (they’re now accepting payments via Bitcoin).


Graham Cluley is an award-winning keynote speaker who has given presentations around the world about cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. A veteran of the computer security industry since the early 1990s, he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows, makes regular media appearances, and is the co-host of the popular "The AI Fix" and "Smashing Security" podcasts. Follow him on Bluesky, Mastodon, and Threads, or drop him an email.

One comment on “Online DDoS service vDOS hacked, spills details of its customers and targets”

  1. SJM

    Krebs stories are the best seriously, what a read!

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