Juvenile Pleads Guilty to 2016 DNS Attack

Mirai botnet was used to target Sony in an attack that took down DynDNS and a number of its notable customers.

Dark Reading Staff, Dark Reading

December 11, 2020

1 Min Read
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An individual, unnamed because they were a juvenile at the time of the crime, has pleaded guilty to committing acts of federal juvenile delinquency relating to a cyberattack that caused massive disruption to the Internet in October 2016. Sentencing is scheduled for January 7, 2021.

According to the guilty plea, the individual conspired to commit computer fraud by running a botnet. The botnet launched DDoS attacks against victims, most of whom were online gamers or online game platforms.

The government found that the individual created the botnet, using a variation of Mirai, in September and October 2016. The attacks, which were aimed at the Sony PlayStation Network, also had a significant impact on Dyn, a New Hampshire-based DNS provider. Sony, Twitter, Amazon, PayPal, Tumblr, Netflix, and Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) - all Dyn customers - suffered site disruptions in the attack.

For more, read here.

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Dark Reading Staff

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