Computer science student pleads guilty to creating Mirai botnet
0Computer science student pleads guilty to creating Mirai botnet.
Further Reading100,000-strong botnet built on router 0-day could strike at any timeA New Jersey man has pled guilty to hacking charges and creating the devastating Mirai botnet, which spread via vulnerabilities in Internet-connected devices to unleash numerous, massive, distributed-denial-of-service attacks. As recently as last week, new Mirai strains continue to proliferate online.
As Ars reported in October 2016, the most serious DDoS degraded or completely took down Twitter, GitHub, the PlayStation network, and hundreds of other sites by targeting Dyn, a service that provided domain name services to the affected sites.
Paras Jha admitted to being behind Mirai according to court documents that were unsealed on Tuesday. The Rutgers University computer science student was originally publicly identified as a likely suspect in January 2017 by Brian Krebs, a well-known, independent computer security journalist.
Further ReadingInternet-paralyzing Mirai botnet comes roaring back with new strainLater that month, after Krebs’ article, Jha’s father, Anand Jha, told NJ Advance Media, that his son had no connection whatsoever to the attack. "I know what he is capable of," Anand Jha said at the time, noting that the FBI had already been in touch with the family, including his son. "Nothing of the sort of what has been described here has happened."