Pierluigi Paganini
October 18, 2024
The US Justice Department charged two Sudanese brothers (Ahmed Salah Yousif Omer, 22, and Alaa Salah Yusuuf Omer, 27) with operating and controlling the cybercrime collective Anonymous Sudan that launched tens of thousands of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks against critical infrastructure, corporate networks, and government agencies in the United States and around the world.
The group’s victims include ChatGPT, Telegram, Microsoft, X, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, the FBI, the State Department, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, and government websites for the state of Alabama.
The collective Anonymous Sudan has been active since January 2023, it claims to target any country that is against Sudan. However, some security researchers believe Anonymous Sudan is a sub-group of the pro-Russian threat group Killnet.
In March 2024, the FBI seized Anonymous Sudan’s DDoS tool, aks “Godzilla,” “Skynet,” and “InfraShutdown,” which was used to launch DDoS attacks and was also available as a service. The feds also seized the accounts containing the source code for their DDoS tools. The two Sudanese nationals were charged with conspiracy, while Ahmed faced additional charges for damaging protected computers.
“The FBI’s seizure of this powerful DDoS tool successfully disabled the attack platform that caused widespread damage and disruptions to critical infrastructure and networks around the world,” said Special Agent in Charge Rebecca Day of the FBI Anchorage Field Office. “With the FBI’s mix of unique authorities, capabilities, and partnerships, there is no limit to our reach when it comes to combating all forms of cybercrime and defending global cybersecurity.”
Since early 2023, the Anonymous Sudan actors and the customers of their DDoS-for-hire service user the group’s Distributed Cloud Attack Tool (DCAT) to conduct destructive DDoS attacks. In approximately one year, the group launched over 35,000 DDoS attacks, including at least 70 targeting computers in the greater Los Angeles area.
If convicted of all charges, Ahmed Salah would face a maximum sentence of life in federal prison, while Alaa Salah would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The arrests took place as part of the international law enforcement Operation PowerOFF, which already dismantled multiple DDoS-for-hire platforms worldwide, and led to the identification of their administrators and customers.
In Europe, law enforcement authorities in France, Luxembourg and Sweden took part in the investigation.
In the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, State Department, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California took part.
Follow me on Twitter: @securityaffairs and Facebook and Mastodon
(SecurityAffairs – hacking, Anonymous Sudan)
