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# Operation PowerOFF

April 2018, DDoS for hire

Source linked. Verified August 21, 2026.

Umbrella campaign. This entry groups 5 recorded actions. Infrastructure, people, and sources sit on each wave rather than on this entry, so read the waves for what was taken down and who was held to account.

## Waves in this campaign

| Wave | Date | Lead | Outcome |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| [Webstresser.org takedown](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/webstresser-org-takedown) | April 24 to April 25, 2018 | Dutch National Police and NCA | Service infrastructure seized in the Netherlands, the United States, and Germany; domain taken offline and replaced with a seizure notice. |
| [Operation PowerOFF December 2022 wave](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/operation-poweroff-december-2022-wave) | December 13 to December 14, 2022 | FBI | 48 domains seized and redirected to seizure notices. |
| [Operation PowerOFF December 2024 wave](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/operation-poweroff-december-2024-wave) | December 1 to December 11, 2024 | Not established | 27 platforms taken offline and domains seized. |
| [Operation PowerOFF April 2026 wave](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/operation-poweroff-april-2026-wave) | April 13 to April 16, 2026 | Not established | 53 domains seized; more than three million criminal accounts exposed; more than 75,000 warning messages sent to users. |
| [PowerOFF eight-domain action (April 2026, USAO Alaska wave)](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/poweroff-eight-domain-action-april-2026-usao-alaska-wave) | April 2026 | USAO-AK | Eight domains seized. |

## What happened

Long-running recurring international campaign against booter and stresser services, executed in distinct dated waves since 2018.[[1]](#source-1)

Announced April 25, 2018.

**Date:** April 2018

**Target:** DDoS-for-hire ecosystem, campaign

**Activity:** DDoS for hire

**Operational lead:** Not established

**Jurisdiction:** Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Poland, and European Union

**Outcome:** See child incidents.

**Status:** Ongoing

**Legal mechanism:** See child incidents.

**Group accounted for:** Not applicable

## People and accountability

No individual is named against this entry in the cited record. That is a gap in what has been published rather than a finding that nobody was involved.

Group accounted for: Not applicable

Campaign-level record.

Not applicable at campaign level.

## What happened afterward

Active through the cutoff.[[1]](#source-1)

Not established in the public record. No later activity is recorded against this entry.

Return class G. The class is a research grading carried in the source dataset and its scale is not published, so this page relies on the relationship and confidence values instead. [How this index handles it](https://takedownindex.org/about).

## Sources

Numbered markers throughout this entry link to the source that supports the claim beside them.

### What each part of this entry rests on

The audit recorded which sources carry which part of the record. These are those sources.

- Identity, dates and counts, [[1]](#source-1) [World's biggest marketplace selling internet paralysing DDoS attacks taken down](https://takedownindex.org/sources/europol-world-s-biggest-marketplace-selling-internet-paralysing-ddos-attacks-tak)

### Official sources

1.
[World's biggest marketplace selling internet paralysing DDoS attacks taken down](https://takedownindex.org/sources/europol-world-s-biggest-marketplace-selling-internet-paralysing-ddos-attacks-tak)

Europol, April 25, 2018, Source grade P2

Infrastructure seizure locations, administrator arrests, service scale

[Open source](https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/world%E2%80%99s-biggest-marketplace-selling-internet-paralysing-ddos-attacks-taken-down)

Coverage note.
- Excluded from incident totals. Children in this pass: td\_2018\_webstresser, td\_2022\_poweroff\_dec, td\_2024\_poweroff\_dec, td\_2026\_poweroff\_apr.
- Additional waves in 2019, 2023, and May 2025 were identified but not fully verified in this pass. Recorded as a coverage gap.

Research context

## How this entry was checked

Source linked

Every claim in this entry traces to a source the audit opened and read. Nothing on the record needed changing.

Verified: August 21, 2026

Sources cited: 1

Research cutoff: August 21, 2026

Limitations recorded against this entry

- Campaign-level record; personnel and legal outcomes belong to child incidents and are not independently counted here.

See also

[About the Internet Takedown Index](https://takedownindex.org/about)

Related entries

- [Webstresser.org takedown](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/webstresser-org-takedown)
- [Operation PowerOFF December 2022 wave](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/operation-poweroff-december-2022-wave)
- [Operation PowerOFF December 2024 wave](https://takedownindex.org/takedowns/operation-poweroff-december-2024-wave)

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