A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack can take down a site, a server, or various parts of the internet. Attackers send to the target incredible amounts of junk traffic which bring their target down, making it impossible for real users to access that online service. One such attack happened back in mid-October last year, and it took out a large number of sites — the entire internet some would say — including Twitter, Spotify, Reddit, PayPal, and others.
Researchers found a Mirai botnet to be responsible for the entire thing, and now a renown security researcher thinks he has uncovered one of the creators of the Mirai botnet.
Brian Krebs, who often writes about online security and data breaches over at his own site Krebs On Security, was attacked with the help of Mirai in September 2016, with his site being down for almost four days.
Since then, he has carefully investigated the matter, and he now thinks he knows who that person is. After months of digging, Krebs wrote an extensive story about the case, which reads like a mob story. Only everything he explains happens online.
“The story you’re reading now is the result of hundreds of hours of research,” he said. “At times, I was desperately seeking the missing link between seemingly unrelated people and events; sometimes I was inundated with huge amounts of information — much of it intentionally false or misleading — and left to search for kernels of truth hidden among the dross.
”If you’ve ever wondered why it seems that so few Internet criminals are brought to justice, I can tell you that the sheer amount of persistence and investigative resources required to piece together who’s done what to whom (and why) in the online era is tremendous,” he said, adding that that he even has a glossary for the story to make reading it easier.
Krebs explained that the object of many DDoS has to do with money. For example, a company that provided DDoS protection for a living might employ DDoS attacks on potential customers, to convince them to buy their protection service. Did I tell you this reads like a mob story?
Apparently, Paras Jha, who owns a DDoS protection provider called Protraf Solutions, is the guy responsible for the attack on Krebs and the internet. Check out the entire story at this link.
