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.Īs noted in previous KrebsOnSecurity articles, botnets like Mirai are used to knock individuals, businesses, governmental agencies, and non-profits offline on a daily basis. 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. The story you’re reading now is the result of hundreds of hours of research. Also, I realize there are a great many names to keep track of as you read this post, so I’ve included a glossary.

The details help in understanding the financial motivations behind Mirai and the botnet wars that preceded it. It’s lengthy because I wanted to walk readers through my process of discovery, which has taken months to unravel. First, this is easily the longest story I’ve ever written on this blog. 30, 2016.īefore we go further, a few disclosures are probably in order. Mirai co-author Anna-Senpai leaked the source code for Mirai on Sept.

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