Owners of DDoS-for-Hire Service vDOS Get 6 Months Community Service

The co-owners of vDOS, a now-defunct service that for four years helped paying customers launch more than two million distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that knocked countless Internet users and websites offline, each have been sentenced to six months of community service by an Israeli court. Continue reading Owners of DDoS-for-Hire Service vDOS Get 6 Months Community Service

Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm Author?

On September 22, 2016, this site was forced offline for nearly four days after it was hit with “Mirai,” a malware strain that enslaves poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices like wireless routers and security cameras into a botnet for use in large cyberattacks. Roughly a week after that assault, the individual(s) who launched that attack — using the name “Anna Senpai” — released the source code for Mirai, spawning dozens of copycat attack armies online.

After months of digging, KrebsOnSecurity is now confident to have uncovered Anna Senpai’s real-life identity, and the identity of at least one co-conspirator who helped to write and modify the malware. Continue reading Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm Author?

Spreading the DDoS Disease and Selling the Cure

Earlier this month a hacker released the source code for Mirai, a malware strain that was used to launch a historically large 620 Gbps denial-of-service attack against this site in September. That attack came in apparent retribution for a story here which directly preceded the arrest of two Israeli men for allegedly running an online attack for hire service called vDOS. Turns out, the site where the Mirai source code was leaked had some very interesting things in common with the place vDOS called home. Continue reading Spreading the DDoS Disease and Selling the Cure

Spreading the DDoS Disease and Selling the Cure

Earlier this month a hacker released the source code for Mirai, a malware strain that was used to launch a historically large 620 Gbps denial-of-service attack against this site in September. That attack came in apparent retribution for a story here which directly preceded the arrest of two Israeli men for allegedly running an online attack for hire service called vDOS. Turns out, the site where the Mirai source code was leaked had some very interesting things in common with the place vDOS called home. Continue reading Spreading the DDoS Disease and Selling the Cure