NightmareStresser DDoS Service Seized by FBI

The FBI seized NightmareStresser domains after hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks were launched through the long-running service.

The FBI has seized domains associated with NightmareStresser, a long-running DDoS-for-hire service that authorities say was used to launch hundreds of thousands of attacks against targets around the world.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced the court-authorized seizure this week as part of a joint operation involving the FBI Anchorage Field Office and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The action was carried out under Operation PowerOFF, an international effort targeting DDoS-for-hire services and the infrastructure behind them.

The seized domains include nightmare-stresser[.]com and nightmarestresser[.]org. Both now display a law-enforcement seizure notice stating that the domains were taken under a warrant issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska.

According to the Justice Department, NightmareStresser was used for hundreds of thousands of actual or attempted distributed denial-of-service attacks against victims worldwide since 2022. The targets included educational institutions, government agencies, gaming platforms and other internet-connected services.

DDoS attacks work by overwhelming a target with large amounts of unwanted traffic, potentially making websites, servers and other online services unavailable. Booter and stresser services have made this type of attack accessible to customers who may have little technical knowledge themselves.

NightmareStresser had previously presented itself as a DDoS testing service, but authorities say services of this type have been used to facilitate criminal attacks. Searchlight Cyber reported in 2023 that NightmareStresser had more than 566,000 registered users and operated 52 servers.

The service also has a history with U.S. law enforcement. In December 2022, the Justice Department seized another domain associated with NightmareStresser as part of an earlier operation against DDoS-for-hire services.

The latest seizure is part of a much broader campaign against the DDoS-for-hire market.

The Justice Department says previous investigations conducted by prosecutors and investigators in Anchorage and Los Angeles over the past eight years have resulted in charges against 12 defendants accused of facilitating DDoS-for-hire services. More than 100 internet domains associated with such services have also been seized.

Operation PowerOFF has involved law-enforcement agencies from multiple countries in an effort to identify and disrupt platforms selling access to DDoS attacks. In April 2026, another coordinated operation resulted in more than 50 domain seizures and four arrests, with authorities identifying approximately 75,000 users of the disrupted services.

The NightmareStresser seizure does not mean DDoS-for-hire services have disappeared. Similar platforms have repeatedly reappeared under new names and domains after previous takedowns. For law enforcement, the broader objective appears to be disrupting the infrastructure and making it harder for customers to purchase attacks.

For now, NightmareStresser’s seized domains remain under law-enforcement control, with the FBI seizure banner replacing the service’s former websites.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)