Suspected Members of Bitcoin Extortion Group DD4BC Captured

The European Union’s top law enforcement agency has announced a new crackdown on distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack group DD4BC.

Europol said today that one individual had been arrested and another detained as part of an effort called Operation Pleiades. The group, which demands bitcoin payments after threatening DDoS attacks, has been known to target a wide range of Web-based services focused on bitcoin, including mining pools.

Authorities in Bosnia and Hezegovina, Germany, France, Japan, Romania, Switzerland, the UK and the US either supported or directly contributed to the action, according to the agencyhttps://www.europol.europa.eu/newsletter/international-action-against-dd4bc-cybercriminal-group.

Europol said in a statement:

"Operation Pleiades resulted in the arrest of a main target and one more suspect detained. Multiple property searches were carried out and an extensive amount of evidence was seized."

The agency indicated that it had identified "key members of the organised network" located in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The operation comes months after the Swiss government issued a warning about the group following a string of attacks in Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland.

DD4BC has also reportedly targeted mainstream financial services.

Police image via Shutterstock