Minecraft Link To Nets Biggest Botnet
Minecraft link to the largest botnet
Malware that launched the net's largest cyber-attack ever included links to Minecraft servers, according to those investigating it.
Security blogger Brian Krebs has spent months investigating the attack which knocked his blog offline.
He claims that the origins for the Mirai botnet can been traced back to rivalries within the Minecraft community.
His claims are backed up by an expert in security, who offered net security to Minecraft servers.
Robert Coelho, vice president of security firm ProxyPipe, told the BBC that his suspicions regarding who was behind the Mirai code have been passed to the FBI who are "actively looking into" the claims.
The botnet Mirai comprised of more than 500,000 connected to the internet devices such as routers and cameras.
It launched attacks known as denial-of-service (DDoS), which targeted websites with so many data that they collapse, that they were the biggest ever.
Victims that were knocked offline included Twitter, Spotify and Reddit. Mcprofile
"Hundreds of hours"
Following the attacks, the individual claiming responsibility - using the codename Anna Senpai - released the source code online, paving the way for similar attacks.
A modified version of the malware was later used to attack UK internet service providers TalkTalk and the Post Office.
Since being struck by the Mirai botnet in September 2016 Krebs has been adamant that Krebs has put in "hundreds of hours" to identifying the person behind it.
He wrote "If you've ever wondered why only a handful of internet criminals are being brought to justice I can tell you that the sheer quantity and persistence required to figure out who's responsible (and the reasons) online is huge."
His research led him to Minecraft, a computer program owned by Microsoft that allows users to build things using cubic blocks.
It has a massive following particularly among children and it is estimated that at any moment, more than more than a million people play it.
According to Mr. Mcprofile Krebs an extremely successful Minecraft web server that has more than 1,000 users per day logging on can earn as much as $50,000 (PS40,600) per month, mostly through players who rent space to build their Minecraft worlds.
"The first clues to Anna Senpai's identity weren't apparent until I realized that Mirai was just the most recent incarnation of an IoT [internet of thingsbotnet family that has been in development and relatively widely used for three years," he writes.
The code used in these earlier versions was often used to knock over web servers used to host Minecraft He claims.
ProxyPipe owned by Mr. Coelho has a large number of Minecraft servers as clients. The server in mid-2015, it was hit by a massive attack that was launched by an unidentified botnet that was made up of IoT devices, such as web cameras.
BBC interviewer Mr Coelho said he was suspicious of the attacker and that "Minecraft is a community that is tight-knit." We know who's talking.
He alleged that the attack originated from an alternative security company, that also provided DDoS protection to Minecraft clients.
He claimed that the person who founded the security company had previously operated an Minecraft web server and was among his clients.
He also claims that the Mirai author - Anna Senpai - contacted him via Skype at the end of September, partly to explain that the attack on his firm was "not personal" but also to boast that he was paid by the owners of a large Minecraft server to launch an attack against a rival server.
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