Virtual Event: Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit - Watch Sessions
Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

SecurityWeekSecurityWeek

Cybercrime

Three Plead Guilty in Mirai Botnet Attacks

US officials unveiled criminal charges Wednesday against a former university student and two others in the Mirai botnet attacks which shut down parts of the internet in several countries starting in mid-2016.

US officials unveiled criminal charges Wednesday against a former university student and two others in the Mirai botnet attacks which shut down parts of the internet in several countries starting in mid-2016.

The Justice Department announced plea agreements for Paras Jha, 21 — a former Rutgers University computer science student who acknowledged writing the malware code — and Josiah White, 20, and Dalton Norman, 21, who helped profit from the attacks.

In documents unsealed Wednesday, Jha admitted writing the code for the botnet which harnessed more than 100,000 “internet of things” (IoT) devices such as cameras, light bulbs and appliances to launch the attacks.

By commanding an army of bots — or computers under control of the attackers — the malware shut down networks and websites in the United States, Germany, Liberia and elsewhere.

Jha admitted he “set up and managed command and control servers to manage the infected computers” in the scheme.

Officials said the three used the botnet “to conduct a number of powerful distributed denial-of-service” attacks which flood the internet and can shut down networks.

Later, Jha posted the source code for the Mirai malware on a criminal forum, allowing other groups to use it.

Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

The malware was used to make money through “click fraud,” a scheme that makes it appear that a real user has clicked on an advertisement for the purpose of artificially generating revenue, according to officials.

The three generated some $180,000 from the scheme in bitcoin, Justice officials added.

Jha was identified as a suspect earlier this year by security blogger Brian Krebs — who was himself a victim of the attacks.

Krebs said Jha used the online moniker Anna-Senpai, who had claimed responsibility for earlier denial of service attacks using various versions of Mirai — including some targeting Rutgers University, the school in New Jersey where Jha was studying.

In January 2017, “Jha and his co-conspirators leased access to their botnet to other criminals in exchange for payment,” according to the plea agreement in federal court.

According to Krebs, Jha and White operated ProTraf Solutions LLC, which masqueraded as a security firm that dealt with “denial of service” attacks it created.

The three face possible prison terms and monetary fines as a result of the conspiracy and fraud charges.

Jha pleaded guilty separately to a series of attacks which shut down the Rutgers computer networks from 2014 to 2016, officials said.

Written By

AFP 2023

Click to comment

Daily Briefing Newsletter

Subscribe to the SecurityWeek Email Briefing to stay informed on the latest threats, trends, and technology, along with insightful columns from industry experts.

SecurityWeek’s Threat Detection and Incident Response Summit brings together security practitioners from around the world to share war stories on breaches, APT attacks and threat intelligence.

Register

Securityweek’s CISO Forum will address issues and challenges that are top of mind for today’s security leaders and what the future looks like as chief defenders of the enterprise.

Register

Expert Insights

Related Content

Cybercrime

The changing nature of what we still generally call ransomware will continue through 2023, driven by three primary conditions.

Cybercrime

Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus Group informed some customers last week that their online accounts had been breached by hackers.

Cybercrime

As it evolves, web3 will contain and increase all the security issues of web2 – and perhaps add a few more.

Cybercrime

A recently disclosed vBulletin vulnerability, which had a zero-day status for roughly two days last week, was exploited in a hacker attack targeting the...

Cybercrime

Satellite TV giant Dish Network confirmed that a recent outage was the result of a cyberattack and admitted that data was stolen.

Cybercrime

Zendesk is informing customers about a data breach that started with an SMS phishing campaign targeting the company’s employees.

Artificial Intelligence

The release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022 has demonstrated the potential of AI for both good and bad.

Artificial Intelligence

The degree of danger that may be introduced when adversaries start to use AI as an effective weapon of attack rather than a tool...