Notes

Minecraft Link to Net's Biggest Botnet

Minecraft link to the net's largest botnet



20 January 2017



Malware that launched the net's biggest ever cyber-attack in the year 2000 had links to Minecraft servers, according to those investigating it.



Security blogger Brian Krebs has spent months researching the attack that took his blog down.



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



His claims are supported by an expert in security, who provided security on 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 referred to the FBI, which is "actively looking into" the claims.



The botnet Mirai comprised of more than 500,000 internet-connected devices like webcams and routers.



It was the cause of attacks known as denial-of-service (DDoS) which hit web pages with so many data that they collapsed, which were the biggest ever.
Game servers


Reddit, Spotify, and Twitter were among the victims.



'Hundreds of hours'



Following the attacks, the person claiming the responsibility, using the codename Anna Senpai, published the source code online, opening the way for similar attacks.



A modified form 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 The entrepreneur Krebs has devoted "hundreds of hours" into uncovering who was behind it.



He wrote "If you have ever wondered why so few internet criminals are arrested I can tell you that the sheer amount and persistence required to piece together who's done which (and the reasons) online is huge."



His research led him to the community around Minecraft, a computer game now owned by Microsoft that lets players create things using cubic blocks.



It has a huge following particularly among children and it is estimated that at any time more than a million people play it.



According to Mr Krebs, a large successful Minecraft web server with more than 1,000 players per day logging on could earn up to $50,000 (PS40,600) per month, mostly from players who rent space to build their Minecraft worlds.



"The first clues to Anna Senpai's identity weren't clear until I understood that Mirai was simply the most recent version of an IoT [internet of thingsbotnet family that's been in development and relatively broad use for nearly three years," he writes.



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



ProxyPipe, owned by Mr Coelho was a client of many Minecraft servers as clients. In mid-2015, ProxyPipe was hit by a massive attack launched from a botnet made up of IoT devices such as web cameras.



BBC interviewer Mr Coelho stated that he was sceptical about the attacker and added: "Minecraft is a tight-knit community. We know who is talking to who."



He claimed that the attack was perpetrated by a rival security firm that also offered DDoS protection for Minecraft clients.



He claimed that the person who founded the security company had previously run an Minecraft web server and was one of his clients.



He also claims that the Mirai author - Anna Senpai - contacted him via Skype at the end of September partially to explain that the attack on his company was "not personal" and also to claim that he was paid by the owners of a huge Minecraft server to launch an attack on an opponent server.



What is a DDoS attack and how can it be prevented?



7 March 2016



"Smart" devices are employed in internet attack



22 October 2016


My Website: https://gservers.org/