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Rent to Pwn: Analyzing Commodity Booter DDoS Services
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Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, the practice by which a malicious party attempts to disrupt a host or network service, has become an increasingly common and effective method of attack. In this article, we summarize what we have learned while investigating the phenomenon of what are called booter or stresser services. These booter services began as a tool used by video-game players to gain an advantage by slowing or disrupting their opponents’ network connection for a short period of time; however, as these services have become increasingly commercialized, they have morphed into powerful, reliable, and easy to use general purpose DDoS services that can be linked to several attacks against non-gamer Web sites.
We begin with an overview of DDoS techniques. We then outline the common capabilities and infrastructure used by these booter services supported with information found on underground forums that market and review such services. Finally, we present empirical measurements of one particular booter, known as TwBooter, based on a publicly leaked dump of their operational database and our own measurements of their attack capabilities.
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