Oregon Man Accused of Operating One of Most Powerful Attack 'Botnets' Ever Seen (msn.com) 23
A 22-year-old Oregon man has been charged with operating one of the most powerful botnets ever recorded. The network, known as Rapper Bot, launched over 370,000 DDoS attacks worldwide, including against X, DeepSeek, U.S. tech firms, and even Defense Department systems. It was allegedly operated by Ethan Foltz of Eugene, Oregon. The Wall Street Journal reports: Foltz faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on a charge of abetting computer intrusions, the Justice Department said in a news release. Rapper Bot was made up of tens of thousands of hacked devices and was capable of flooding victims' websites with enough junk internet traffic to knock them offline, an attack known as a distributed denial of service, or DDoS.
In February, the networking company Nokia measured a Rapper Bot attack against a gaming platform at 6.5 trillion bits per second, well above the several hundred million bits a second of the average high-speed internet connection. "This would place Rapper Bot among the most powerful DDoS botnets to have ever existed," said a criminal complaint that the prosecutors filed Tuesday in a federal court in Alaska. Investigators said Rapper Bot's attacks were so powerful that they were able to overwhelm all but the most robust networks.
Foltz allegedly rented out Rapper Bot to paying customers, including gambling website operators who would use the network in extortion attempts, according to the complaint. The botnet was used to launch more than 370,000 attacks in 80 countries, including China, Japan and the U.S., prosecutors said. It launched its attacks from hacked routers, digital video recorders and cameras, not from computers. [...] "At its height, it mobilized tens of thousands of devices, many with no prior role in DDoS," said Jerome Meyer, a researcher with Nokia's Deepfield network-analysis division. "Taking it down removes a major source of the largest attacks we see."
In February, the networking company Nokia measured a Rapper Bot attack against a gaming platform at 6.5 trillion bits per second, well above the several hundred million bits a second of the average high-speed internet connection. "This would place Rapper Bot among the most powerful DDoS botnets to have ever existed," said a criminal complaint that the prosecutors filed Tuesday in a federal court in Alaska. Investigators said Rapper Bot's attacks were so powerful that they were able to overwhelm all but the most robust networks.
Foltz allegedly rented out Rapper Bot to paying customers, including gambling website operators who would use the network in extortion attempts, according to the complaint. The botnet was used to launch more than 370,000 attacks in 80 countries, including China, Japan and the U.S., prosecutors said. It launched its attacks from hacked routers, digital video recorders and cameras, not from computers. [...] "At its height, it mobilized tens of thousands of devices, many with no prior role in DDoS," said Jerome Meyer, a researcher with Nokia's Deepfield network-analysis division. "Taking it down removes a major source of the largest attacks we see."
My first thought is.. hang him by his balls. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Came here to say the same thing. It's the utter lack of security on IoT devices that allow this kind of nonsense. Companies that create these insecure IoT devices that are included in the bot-nets need to be held accountable too. Perhaps that will be the incentive they need to make devices more robust and force owners to actually set up security in the first place before the device will operate.
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Re: My first thought is.. hang him by his balls. (Score:3)
"I think there is something really sick about people who think otherwise. Script kitties who exploit things for $$ are sick in my book."
If you talked to him, could you be more specific about why he should change (what if he had a strong basic income and did not need money?), or is it simply "lock him up!"?
Re: My first thought is.. hang him by his balls. (Score:4, Insightful)
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There's a percentage of people who want to find ways to exploit others. Ethics and morals are not things we are naturally born with in fully developed forms, they start out at simpler stages. Many people grow past the exploitative stage, but many also don't. So there's always going to be a certain amount of exploitation to varying degrees. If we have a WWIII and return to a Mad Max style existence, exploitation and strength would be the highest morality available.
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Script kitties who exploit things for $$ are sick in my book.
Agreed. Why can't they be happy with simply playing with a ball of yarn or torturing the occasional mouse?
Well, we can do both (Score:1)
"He even LOOKs like the Kid!" (Score:2)
Looks can deceive.
Only ten years? (Score:3, Insightful)
"The botnet was used to launch more than 370,000 attacks in 80 countries, including China, Japan and the U.S., prosecutors said."
And no one was harmed or killed? Normally manslaughter to murder 1 (in the USA) is 10 years to life. A third of a million attacks targeting 37% of all nations on this panet gets at most TEN years? What the fuck is wrong with the US justice system?!?
They might as well start pardoning the criminals in DC (oh, right, they did that in January). What a banana republic
Is it DamnOregoinan? (Score:4, Funny)
Was it DamnOregonian [slashdot.org] up to his old tricks again??
Gambling Site Operators (Score:5, Interesting)
Gambling site operators were using a botnet to DDoS targets that they would extort.
Interesting. I would like to know more.
Did the extortion have anything to do with the gambling?
Were the gambling site operators DDoSing their own customers, or customers of competing websites?
Was the extortion just some new side business by the gambling sites?
Did the gambling sites make more money from gambling or extortion?
I'm so confused.
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don't worry all those questions will never be answered.
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Agree. I'll go to my grave with these questions left unanswered. Kinda sucks. But at least I will have broccoli cheese soup soon!!!!
Hurray for soup!
6.5 trillion bits per second (Score:5, Funny)
What's the point (Score:3)
Posting to undo mistaken moderation. (Score:3)
Yeah... (Score:2)
He's gonna enjoy prison...