The FBI’s shutdown of the 15 largest distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) for hire vendors (booters) reduced the overall number of attacks worldwide by nearly 11 percent compared to the same period last year.

Along with the fewer total attacks, the average size decreased by 85 percent as did the maximum attack size by 24 percent, indicating the FBI crackdown was effective in reducing the global impact of DDoS attacks.

However, booter websites are poised to make a comeback despite the crackdown due to growing botnets and incessant demand for DDoS-for-hire services, according to the Nexusguard Q4 2018 Threat Report.