Notes

Minecraft Link To Net's Biggest Botnet

Minecraft link to the world's largest botnet



20 January 2017



According to those who looked into it the malware that launched the largest cyber-attack to hit the internet in the history of the internet had links to Minecraft servers.



Security blogger Brian Krebs has spent months researching the attack that took his blog offline.
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He claims that the roots for the Mirai botnet can be traced back to rivalries within the Minecraft community.



His claims are confirmed by a security expert who offered net security to Minecraft servers.



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



Mirai, a botnet of more than 500,000 connected devices, such as routers and webcams, was developed.



It launched attacks known as denial-of service (DDoS), which hit web pages with so much data they collapse, that they were the largest ever.



Reddit, Spotify, and Twitter were among the victims.



"Hundreds of hours"



Following the attacks, the individual who claimed responsibility - using the codename Anna Senpai - released the source code online, opening the way for copycat 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 hour" investigating the Mirai botnet attack in September 2016.



"If you've ever wondered why it is that so few cyber criminals are prosecuted I can assure you that the amount of perseverance and investigative resources required to figure out who's done what to whom (and why) in the age of the internet is staggering," he wrote.



His research led him directly to the community around Minecraft the computer game now owned by Microsoft where players create their own things using cubic blocks.



It has a massive following especially among children and it is estimated that at any one time a million people are playing it.



According to Mr. Krebs, a large successful Minecraft web server that has more than 1,000 players logging on each day could earn up to $50,000 (PS40,600) per month, mostly through gamers renting space to create their Minecraft worlds.



He states that Anna Senpai's identity was not revealed until he was able to understand Mirai, the latest member of an IoT botnet family that had been in development for nearly three years.



He says that the code in older versions was used to shut down servers hosting Minecraft.



ProxyPipe owned by Mr. Coelho has a large number of Minecraft servers as clients. It in mid-2015, it was hit by a massive attack which was carried out by an unidentified botnet that was made up of IoT devices like web cameras.



Mr Coelho told the BBC that he had suspicions as to who was responsible for the attack: "Minecraft is a tight knit community. We know who is talking to whom."



He claimed that the attack came from a competing security firm, which also offered DDoS protection to Minecraft clients.



He claimed that the person who founded the security firm had previously operated the Minecraft web server and was among his clients.



He claims that Anna Senpai, the Mirai author, contacted him via Skype at the end of September to explain that the attack against his company was "not personal" however, she also wanted to brag about how he was paid by the owners of a huge Minecraft server to launch an assault on a rival server.



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Website: https://ianblog.com/