European Police Email 75,000 DDoS Users in Massive Cybercrime Crackdown

Quick Facts

• Law enforcement from 21 countries sent warning emails to over 75,000 alleged DDoS attackers and seized 53 domains
• Authorities obtained data on more than 3 million criminal user accounts from seized databases of booter services
• DDoS attacks cost small businesses an average of $52,000 per incident and enterprises $444,000 per incident

European police have launched their largest coordinated strike against distributed denial-of-service attacks, emailing 75,000 people demanding they stop participating in cybercrimes that can knock websites offline.

Operation PowerOFF brought together law enforcement from 21 countries during an action week beginning April 13. The coalition arrested four people, served 25 search warrants, and seized 53 domains linked to booter services that let users launch DDoS attacks for hire.

Authorities obtained data on more than 3 million alleged criminal user accounts from the seized databases. They removed over 100 URLs advertising DDoS-for-hire services from search engine results and created targeted ads to reach young people searching for attack tools.

Attack Patterns and Motivations

Europol said attacks are often regionally focused, with users targeting servers and websites within their continent. The targets include online marketplaces, telecommunications providers and other web-based services.

“Motivations vary from curiosity to ideological purposes linked to hacktivism, as well as financial gain through extortion or the disruption of competitors’ services,” Europol stated.

The seized booter services allowed users to launch DDoS attacks through infrastructure made up of servers, databases, and technical components. By seizing these systems, authorities aimed to hinder criminal operations and prevent further damage to victims.

Economic Impact

DDoS attacks carry steep financial costs for businesses. Small-to-medium-sized companies face an average cost of $52,000 per incident, while enterprises see costs reach $444,000 per incident.

System downtime costs businesses an average of $5,600 per minute. In the financial and e-commerce sectors, one hour of unavailability can cost $300,000 to $500,000.

The most common operational impacts include significant load time increases (52%), transaction failures (29%), and complete service disruption (13%).

Growing Threat

DDoS attacks surged 75% in 2025, following 137% growth the previous year. Network-layer attacks targeting OSI layers 3 and 4 increased 168.2% year over year, with peak volumes reaching almost 30 terabits per second.

Active DDoS attacks occurred 88% of the time in 2025, equating to 322 days per year when systems faced targeting.

“We are experiencing a clear paradigm shift. DDoS is no longer a disruptive one-off event but rather a permanent strategic burden on digital business models,” said Jens-Philipp Jung, founder and CEO of Link11.

Operation PowerOFF began in 2018 as a joint effort between the FBI, Europol, Dutch National Police Corps, German Federal Criminal Police Office, Polish Cybercrime Police, and UK National Crime Agency. The previous phase shut down 48 websites and led to six arrests in the United States.

Authorities plan to continue coordinated campaigns to disrupt illegal cyber activities and prevent future attacks.

Read more: European police email 75,000 people asking them to stop DDoS attacks