DDoS-for-Hire Service Launches Mobile App

In May 2013 KrebsOnSecurity wrote about Ragebooter, a service that paying customers can use to launch powerful distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks capable of knocking individuals and Web sites offline. The owner of Ragebooter subsequently was convicted in 2016 of possessing child pornography, but his business somehow lived on while he was in prison. Now just weeks after Poland made probation, a mobile version of the attack-for-hire service has gone up for sale on the Google Play store.

In the story Ragebooter: ‘Legit’ DDoS Service, or Fed Backdoor, I profiled then 19-year-old Justin D. Poland from Memphis — who admitted to installing code on his Ragebooter service that allowed FBI investigators to snoop on his customers.

Last February, Poland was convicted of one felony count of possession of child pornography, after investigators reportedly found 2,600 child pornography images on one of his computers. Before his trial was over, Poland skipped town but his bondsman later located him at his mother’s house. He was sentenced to two years in jail.

Poland did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but on his Facebook account Poland said the images belonged to his former roommate — David Starliper — who’d allegedly used Poland’s computer. Starliper also was convicted of possessing child pornography and sentenced to two years in prison.

In September 2017, Poland began posting on his Facebook account that he had made parole and was getting ready to be released from prison. On Oct. 6, the first version of the Android edition of Ragebooter was put on sale at Google’s Play Store.

Poland’s Facebook page says he is the owner of ragebooter[dot]com, ragebooter[dot]net, and another site called vmdeploy[net]. The advertisement for Ragebooter’s new mobile app on Google Play says the developer’s email address is contact@rageservices[dot]net. The registration details for rageservices[dot]net are hidden, but the Web site lists some useful contact details.

One of them is a phone number registered in Memphis — 901-219-3644 — that is tied to a Facebook account for an Alex Slovak in Memphis. The other domain Poland mentions on his Facebook page — vmdeploy[dot]net — was registered to an Alex Czech from Memphis. It seems likely that Alex has been running Ragebooter while Poland was in prison. Mr. Slovak/Czech did not respond to requests for comment, but it is clear from his Facebook page that he is friends with Poland’s family.

Rageservices[dot]net advertises itself as a store for custom programming and Web site development. Its content is identical to a site called QuantumServices. A small purchase through the rageservices[dot]net site for a simple program generated a response from Quantum Services and an email from quantumservicesweb@gmail.com. The person responding at that email address declined to give his or her name, but said they were not Justin Poland.

Figures posted to the home page of ragebooter[dot]net claim the service has been used to conduct more than 310,000 DDoS attacks. Memberships are sold in packages ranging from $3 per day to $300 a year for an “enterprise” plan. Ragebooter[dot]net includes a notice at the top of the site indicating that rageservices[dot]net is indeed affiliated with Ragebooter.

If Poland still is running Ragebooter, he may well be violating the terms of his parole. According to the FBI, the use of DDoS-for-hire services like Ragebooter is illegal.

In October the FBI released an advisory warning that the use of booter services — also called “stressers” — is punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and may result in arrest and criminal prosecution.

“Booter and stresser services are a form of DDoS-for-hire— advertised in forum communications and available on Dark Web marketplaces— offering malicious actors the ability to anonymously attack any Internet-connected target. These services are obtained through a monetary transaction, usually in the form of online payment services and virtual currency. Criminal actors running booter and stresser services sell access to DDoS botnets, a network of malware-infected computers exploited to make a victim server or network resource unavailable by overloading the device with massive amounts of fake or illegitimate traffic.”

Tags: 901-219-3644, Alex Czech, Alex Slovak, DDoS, justin poland, Ragebooter

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 9th, 2017 at 8:55 pm and is filed under Other.
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