A new devastating tool by the name of Mirai was used in the attack on Dyn - the largest DDoS in history. It achieved this by using Internet of Things (IoT) devices as a botnet to great effect. How did we get here?

1. SEPTEMBER
KREBSONSECURITY HIT BY
RECORD-BREAKING DDOS
The website of researcher Brian Krebs is
attacked by a botnet using IoT devices to
AUGUST
MIRAI IS DISCOVERED
Security researchers at MalwareMustDie
uncover a new trojan - the binary
was called “Mirai.*”.
SEPTEMBER
OCTOBER
SOURCE CODE DUMPED ONLINE
A user by the name of ‘Anna-Senpei’ posts
their tracks. Mirai becomes open source.
OCTOBER
MIRAI’S NETWORK DOUBLES IN SIZE
Colorado's Level 3 Communications estimates
the number of devices compromised by
Mirai rise from 213,000 to 493,000.
SOURCE CODE
OCTOBER
MIRAI HITS DYN
A huge DDoS using Mirai hits Dyn, a company
that controls much of the internet’s domain
name system infrastructure. Spotify, Reddit and
MIRAI HITS OVH
French cloud and web hosting company
OVH reports a huge attack on several
of its customer's websites.
NOVEMBER
GERMANY UNDER ATTACK
An updated type of Mirai that exploits security
flaws in routers brings down web access for
almost a million Deutsche Telekom
customers for two days.
NOVEMBER
TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER
Two hackers ‘BestBuy’ and ‘Popopret’, the
two behind the Deutsche Telekom attack,
advertise their Mirai botnet of 400,000 for
rent online.
NOVEMBER
TALKTALK IS TARGETED
At least 55,000 of TalkTalk’s customers
lose internet connection for several days.
JANUARY
ACCUSATIONS FLY
Brian Krebs puts in ‘100’s of hours of research’
and claims there are similarities between
‘Anna-Senpai’ & Paras Jha, owner of a DDoS
mitigation company.
FEBRUARY
MIRAI EVOLVES ONTO WINDOWS
Kaspersky Lab finds a hacker has created a
version of Mirai based on the Windows OS.
FEBRUARY
AN ARREST IS MADE
A 29-year-old British man is arrested under
suspicion of carrying out the Deutsche Telekom
attack. Germany pushes for extradition.
MARCH
MIRAI IS “HYDRA”
says Bryant Townsend, CEO of Backconnect,
in a reference to the mythical many-headed
serpent.
THE ENEMY WITHIN IOT
MIRAI & DDOS - A TIMELINE
2016 saw the emergence of the
most devastating DDoS tool ever
created - Mirai
NEXT
WHAT
For more tech insights visit
interquestgroup.com
...........