Minecraft Link To Net's Biggest Botnet

Minecraft link to the world's largest botnet

20 January 2017

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

Security blogger Brian Krebs has spent months studying the attack that knocked his blog offline.

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

He is aided by an expert in security, who has provided net security for 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 referred to the FBI who are "actively investigating" the claims.

Mirai is a botnet that includes more than 500,000 connected devices such as routers and webcams was created.

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 largest ever.

Victims that were knocked offline included Twitter, Spotify and Reddit.

"Hundreds of hours"

Shortly after the attacks, the person claiming responsibility, utilizing 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.

He wrote "If you've ever wondered why so few cybercriminals are being prosecuted I can tell you that the sheer amount and determination required to piece together who's responsible (and the reasons) online is enormous."

His research led him to Minecraft, a computer program that is now owned by Microsoft that allows users to create things with cubic blocks.

It has a huge fan base, especially among children, and it is estimated that at any one moment, a million people are playing it.

Mr Krebs claims that a Minecraft server with more than 1,000 users can earn $50,000 per month (PS40,600). mpservers.net This is mainly due to users renting space to create their Minecraft worlds.

"The first clues to Anna Senpai's identity were not apparent until I realized that Mirai was just the latest incarnation of an IoT [internet of things] botnet family that has 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 web servers that host Minecraft the game, according to him.

ProxyPipe owned by Mr. Coelho was a popular provider of Minecraft servers as clients and in mid-2015 was attacked by a massive attack, launched from a botnet made up of IoT devices such as web cameras.

Mr Coelho said to the BBC that he had suspicions about who was behind the attack: "Minecraft is a tight knit community. We know who's talking.

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

He claimed that the founder and client of the security company had previously operated a Minecraft web server.

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

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