Notes

Minecraft Link to Net's Biggest Botnet

Minecraft link to the world's largest botnet



20 January 2017



Malware that triggered the internet's biggest ever cyber-attack in the year 2000 was linked to Minecraft servers, according to those investigating it.



Brian Krebs, security blogger, spent months investigating the attack that knocked his blog offline.



He claims that the origins for the Mirai botnet can been traced back to rivalries within the Minecraft community.



He is backed by security experts who provide protection of the net for Minecraft servers.



Robert Coelho, vice president of security firm ProxyPipe Robert Coelho, vice president of security firm ProxyPipe, told BBC that his suspicions regarding who was behind the Mirai code have been passed to the FBI, which is "actively investigating" the claims.



The botnet Mirai was made up of more than 500,000 web-connected devices such as webcams and routers.



It was the cause of attacks known as denial-of service (DDoS) that targeted websites with so many data that they fell apart, and were the largest ever.



Reddit, Spotify, and Twitter were among the victims.



"Hundreds of hours"



Following the attacks, the person who claimed the responsibility, using the codename Anna Senpai, posted the source code online, opening the way for copies of the attacks.



A modified version of the malware was later used to attack UK internet service providers TalkTalk and the Post Office.



Krebs spent "hundreds of hours" investigating the Mirai botnet attack in September of 2016.



"If you've ever wondered why it is that so few internet criminals are brought to justice, I can tell you that the sheer amount of perseverance and investigative resources required to piece together who's done what to whom (and the reason) in the age of the internet is staggering," he wrote.



His research led him to the community of Minecraft the computer game that is now owned by Microsoft where players create things using cubic blocks.



It is loved by a lot of people, especially children and it is estimated that around one million people play it every day.



Mr Krebs claims that a Minecraft server with over 1,000 players can make $50,000 per month (PS40,600). This is due to the fact that players renting space to create their own Minecraft worlds.



"The first clues to Anna Senpai's identity were not clear until I understood that Mirai was just the latest incarnation of an IoT [internet of thingsbotnet family that's been in development and relatively widely used for three years," he writes.



The code in the earlier versions was commonly used to knock over servers hosting Minecraft the game, according to him.



ProxyPipe, owned by Mr Coelho, had many Minecraft servers as clients. In mid-2015, ProxyPipe was hit by an enormous attack that was launched by a botnet of IoT devices like web cameras.



Mr. Coelho told the BBC that he was able to confirm his suspicions as to who was behind the attack: "Minecraft is a tight knit community. We know who is talking.



He alleged that the attack was a result of an unrelated security firm that also provided DDoS protection to Minecraft clients.



He claimed that the founder of the security company had previously run the 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 company was "not personal" and also to claim that he was paid by the owners of a large Minecraft server to launch an attack against a rival server.
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