Police bust cyber ring accused of causing millions in damage

Israel Police reveal Tuesday they arrested two suspects accused of carrying out cyber attacks all over the world on behalf of paying clients that caused millions of dollars in damages while netting the hackers $613,000.

The police cyber unit led an operation over the past year and a half and were joined in the probe by investigators and intelligence officials from the US, England, the Netherlands, and Sweden as part of the Europol organization. The collaboration led to arrests of suspects abroad, police say.

The investigation uncovered criminal actions by a number of Israeli suspects who set up and operated a website that, for a fee, would carry out Distributed Denial of Service attacks — an internet assault that overwhelms targeted servers with artificial traffic, causing them to stop working and crash.

State prosecutors are expected to file indictments in a closed session at the Kfar Saba Magistrate’s Court Tuesday against the two suspects, both 19 and from the central Sharon region, for setting up and operating “a criminal initiative unprecedented in its scope to carry out cyber attacks,” police say.

— Stuart Winer