According to the report published on the official website of Europol, law enforcement authorities worldwide have made the arrest between 5 December and 9 December 2016.
Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) supported the law enforcement agencies in their efforts to identify suspects in the European Union and beyond.
Arrested Suspects Are Mainly Teenagers
All those arrested are mainly "young adults under the age of 20," who are suspected of paying for Netspoof stresser as well as booters services to maliciously deploy DDoS-for-hire software and using them to launch cyber attacks.
The ddos attacks flooded target websites and web servers with massive amounts of data, leaving those services inaccessible to users.
Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) head Steven Wilson hopes that the latest arrests would deliver a message to any wannabe hackers, saying:
"Today's generation is closer to technology than ever before, with the potential of exacerbating the threat of cyber crime. Many IT enthusiasts get involved in seemingly low-level fringe cybercrime activities from a young age, unaware of the consequences that such crimes carry."
"One of the key priorities of law enforcement should be to engage with these young people to prevent them from pursuing a criminal path, helping them understand how they can use their skills for a more constructive purpose."This international operation involved Europol working alongside law enforcement from Australia, Belgium, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Lithuania, Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
All the participating countries worked together in the framework set out by the EMPACT (European Multidisciplinary Platform against Criminal Threats) – a project with the aim of targeting cyberattacks that affect critical infrastructure and information systems in the EU.
