Mirai Botnet creators helping FBI fight cyber crime to stay out of jail
It is is true that a smart hacker can better understand the potential knowledge of another hacker. Last year three young hackers who were sentenced for creating and spreading the notorious Mirai botnet, where there were massive DDoS attack came from 1,000,00 hacked IoT devices and now they are helping the FBI to investigate other "complex" cybercrime cases in return to avoid their lengthy prison terms.
The trio were one is Paras Jha, 21 from New Jersey, Josiah White, 20 from Washington, and Dalton Norman, 21 from Louisiana, ordered guilty by the Chief U.S. District Judge in Alaska in December 2017 to multiple charges for their role in creating and hijacking hundreds of thousands of IoT devices to make them part of a notorious botnet network.
The trio developed the Mirai botnet to attack rival Minecraft video gaming hosts, but after realizing that their invention was powerful enough to launch record-breaking DDoS attacks against targets like OVH hosting website, they released the source code of Mirai.
Hackers Assisting FBI As Part Of Their Sentencing.
However, after U.S. prosecutors recently, that the men had provided "extensive" and "exceptional" assistance to a dozen or more different law enforcement, a federal judge in Alaska sentenced each of the three men to just five years of probation-no prison sentence. The trio has also been ordered to pay $127,000 in restitution, serve 2,500 hours of community service, and has voluntarily handed over significant amounts of cryptocurrency seized during the investigation into their activities.
According to court documents filed last week, Jha, White, and Norman have been working with the FBI for more than a year and will continue to cooperate with the agency. In March, the three hackers also helped law enforcement stop the Memcached-based DDoS attack, a tool that helped criminals launch over As more amplified attacks were expected following the record-breaking 1.35 Tbps Github DDoS attack, someone has just set a new record after only four days - 1.7 Tbps DDoS attack, than its original strength against their targets.
Cybercrime is a worldwide epidemic that reaches many Alaskans. The perpetrators count on being technologically one step ahead of law enforcement officials," said U.S. Attorney Bryan Schroder.
The plea agreement with the young offenders, in this case, was a unique opportunity for law enforcement officers, and will give FBI investigators the knowledge and tools they need to stay ahead of cybercriminals around the world.
Schroder concluded that cybercriminals often develop their technical skills at a young age, and this case demonstrates the government's commitment to hold criminals accountable while encouraging offenders to choose a different path to apply their skills.
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