A cyberattack group based in Turkey is offering interested hackers to join a dedicated distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) platform and earn points that can then be exchanged for certain hacking tools. The platform is called Surface Defense, and it asks hackers to target political websites using a DDoS tool called Balyoz, which literally translates to Sledgehammer.

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According to ZDNet, participants in this hacking platform are recruited from various hacking forums. Once recruited, hackers are told to download the Surface Defense collaboration software.

The program then runs locally on a computer and will download necessary tools used for the DDoS attack. Once the necessary tools are downloaded and installed, users can launch an attack on the target website. Traffic is through The Onion Router (Tor) in order to disrupt online services.

For every 10 minutes the Sledgehammer tool is working, the user will receive one point. These points can be accumulated and exchanged for including a standalone version of the Sledgehammer tool, which users can use to launch their own DDoS attacks. The tool can also be used to launch bots that can generate revenue using pay-to-click schemes.

The hacking operation was discovered by Forcepoint Security Labs. At the time of the discovery, the security firm said that the hacking group have 24 websites on its target list. The list of targets include some Kurdish media websites, the German Christian Democratic Party websites, and several Israeli domains.

Security researchers investigating the hacking group said that the operator behind Surface Defense use a hidden backdoor, which in turn can be used against some of its participants, according to PC World.

Tagshack, hacker, hackers, DDoS, botnet, surface defense, ESET, denial of service, distributed denial of service