LONDON: A British and Dutch-led operation on Wednesday brought down a website linked to more than four million cyber-attacks around the world, with banking giants among the victims, Britain’s National Crime Agency said.
“Authorities in five countries including the Netherlands, Serbia, Croatia and Canada, with support from Police Scotland and Europol, targeted six members of the crime group behind webstresser.org,” the NCA said in a statement.
Cyber-criminals used the website’s services, which could be rented for as little as $14.99, to launch so-called distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks, which swamp targets with traffic and disable their IT systems.
British police searched an address in Bradford, northern England, and seized a number of items, while Dutch police, with assistance from Germany and the United States, seized servers and took down the website.
Police believe an individual linked to the address used the site, the world’s largest illegal DDOS seller, to hit seven of Britain’s biggest banks in November, forcing them to reduce operations.
“Stressers” services give users the ability to stress-test the resilience of servers, causing disruption to the target.
“A significant criminal website has been shut down and the sophisticated crime group behind it stopped as a result of an international investigation,” said the NCA’s Jo Goodall.
“The arrests made over the past two days show that the Internet does not provide bullet-proof anonymity to offenders and we expect to identify further suspects linked to the site in the coming weeks and months as we examine the evidence we have gathered,” she added.
Dutch National Police’s Gert Ras was quoted in the NCA statement as saying that the operation had “made an unprecedented impact on DDOS cyber-crime.”
“This is a warning to all wannabe DDOS-ers... we will identify you, bring you to court and facilitate that you will be held liable by the victims for the huge damage you cause.”
Cyber crime website behind 4 million attacks taken down
Cyber crime website behind 4 million attacks taken down
Apple to update EU browser options, make more apps deletable
- iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7
- Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options
STOCKHOLM: Apple will change how users choose browser options in the European Union, add a dedicated section for changing default apps, and make more apps deletable, the company said on Thursday.
The iPhone maker came under pressure from regulators to make changes after the EU’s sweeping Digital Markets Act took effect on March 7, forcing big tech companies to offer mobile users the ability to select from a list of available web browsers on a “choice screen.”
The new rules require mobile software makers to show the choice screen where users can select a browser, search engine and virtual assistant as they set up their phones, which earlier came with preferred options from Apple and Google.
In an update later this year, Apple users will be able to select a default browser directly from the choice screen after going through a mandatory list of options.
A randomly ordered list of 12 browsers per EU country will be shown to the user with short descriptions, and the chosen one will be automatically downloaded, Apple said. The choice screen will also be available on iPads through an update later this year.
Apple released a previous update in response to the new rules in March, but browser companies criticized the design of its choice screen, and the Commission opened an investigation on March 25 saying it suspected that the measures fell short of effective compliance.
The company said it has been in dialogue with the European Commission and believes the new changes will address regulators’ concerns.
It also plans to introduce a dedicated area for default apps where a user will be able to set defaults for messaging, phone calls, spam filters, password managers and keyboards.
Users will also be able to delete certain Apple-made apps such as App Store, Messages, Camera, Photos and Safari. Only Settings and Phone apps would not be deletable.
