Minecraft Link To Nets Biggest Botnet
Minecraft link to the largest botnet
20 January 2017
Malware that triggered the internet's biggest ever cyber-attack in the year 2000 included links to Minecraft servers, according to those investigating it.
Brian Krebs, security blogger, spent months investigating the attack that took his blog offline.
He claims that the roots of the Mirai botnet can be traced back to rivalries in the Minecraft community.
His claims are confirmed by an expert in security who has provided security on the net for Minecraft servers.
Robert Coelho, vice president of security firm ProxyPipe said to 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 web-connected devices like routers and cameras.
It launched attacks referred to as denial-of-service (DDoS) that targeted websites with such a large amount of data they collapse, that they were the biggest ever.
The victims that were taken offline included Twitter, Spotify and Reddit.
"Hundreds of hours"
After the attacks, the person responsible - who went by the codename Anna Senpai released the source code online, which paved 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, Mr Krebs has devoted "hundreds of hours" to identifying the person behind it.
He wrote "If you have ever wondered why so few cybercriminals are being arrested, then I can tell that the sheer quantity and perseverance required to piece together who's doing what (and why) online is staggering."
His research led him directly to the online community around Minecraft, a computer game that is now owned by Microsoft, in which users build things from cubic blocks.
It has a massive following, especially among children, and it is estimated that at any moment, a million people are playing it.
According to Mr. Krebs the large and successful Minecraft web server with more than 1000 players logging on each day could earn up to $50,000 (PS40,600) per month, mainly from players who rent space to build their Minecraft worlds.
He states that Anna Senpai's identity was not disclosed until he was able to understand Mirai the most recent member of an IoT botnet family that was developing for more than three years.
The code for the earlier versions was commonly used to hack into servers that hosted Minecraft He claims.
ProxyPipe, owned by Mr Coelho was a client of many Minecraft servers as clients. In mid-2015, ProxyPipe was hit by an enormous attack that was launched by an unidentified botnet of IoT devices, such as web cameras.
BBC interviewer Mr Coelho stated that he was concerned about the attacker and said that "Minecraft is a tight-knit community." We know who's talking.
He alleged that the attack originated from a security firm that was competing, that also provided DDoS protection to Minecraft clients.
He claimed that the client and founder of the security company had previously managed a Minecraft web server.
He claims that Anna Senpai, the Mirai creator, contacted him via Skype at the end of September to explain that the attack against his company was "not personal" and to brag about how he had been paid by the owners of a huge Minecraft server to launch an attack against another server. gallery
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