14 DAY TRIAL // Europol has announced the arrest of key members of the DD4BC hacking outfit that blackmailed multiple European companies with DDoS attacks in exchange for Bitcoin payments.
Austrian authorities started the investigation after several local companies reported blackmail attempts. Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) soon joined the operation, and a continent-wide hunt started, with law enforcement agencies in multiple countries looking for clues that might help them discover DD4BC's whereabouts.
DD4BC members discovered in Bosnia and Herzegovina
UK's Metropolitan Police Cyber Crime Unit (MPCCU) was the one that tracked down the group, identifying key members in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Two suspects were arrested on December 15 and 16, 2015. One suspect is considered the mastermind behind DD4BC while the other is an accomplice. Police also searched their homes and found "an extensive amount of evidence."
Other countries that participated in Operation Pleiades (operation codename for the DD4BC investigation) includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, France, Romania, and Switzerland. Other non-European countries, such as Australia, Japan, and the US, also got involved. Europol benefited from Interpol's help as well.
DD4BC was dormant ever since Akamai's report
The activities of the DD4BC group were first detailed by Akamai at the start of September 2015, but their first attacks were recorded as early as September 2014.
The group operated by launching small DDoS attacks against companies and then asked for a ransom in Bitcoin to prevent further assaults. If the victim declined to pay, the group would then launch more powerful attacks in the following days. This went on until the hackers got paid or bored.
Ever since Akamai published their report on the group's modus operandi, DD4BC went dormant.
The organization's tactics spawned multiple copycat groups, which later spawned their own copycats, and the DDoS-4-Bitcoin extortion scheme has become a regular practice these days.