3 Plead Guilty For Creating Botnet Used In Internet Attack: DOJ

Three people pleaded guilty in cybercrime cases involving a botnet that was used to slow down and in some cases take down websites, the Department of Justice said. One of the defendants also pleaded guilty to launching a cyber attack on the Rutgers University computer network, the DOJ said.

Paras Jha, 21, of Fanwood, New Jersey, Josiah White, 20, of Washington, Pennsylvania and Dalton Norman, 21, of Metairie, Louisiana pleaded guilty in the District of Alaska on Dec. 8 to criminal Informations and were each charged with conspiracy to violate the computer fraud and abuse act in operating the Mirai botnet, according to the DOJ.

Feds say the three men created a powerful botnet in the summer and fall of 2016 that consisted of internet of things (IoT) devices, like routers and wireless cameras, which were used to conduct a number of powerful DDoS attacks, flooding the internet connections of a targeted computer or computers. According to the DOJ, the defendants' involvement with the original Mirai variant ended in the fall of 2016 when Jha posted the source code for the botnet online.

The DOJ said that since then, others have used the Mirai variant in other attacks.

A broad "denial of service" attack waged using the Mirai botnet knocked services such as Twitter and Netflix offline in October 2016. Prosecutors said they don't believe the three men were responsible for that attack, as Jha had already posted the code for Mirai to online criminal forums

Jha and Norman also pleaded guilty to criminal informations and were each charged with conspiracy to violate the computer fraud and abuse act in the District of Alaska. The DOJ said from Dec. 2016 to Feb. 2017, the two successfully infected over 100,000 primarily U.S.-based computing devices with malicious software, forming a powerful botnet. Feds say the devices were used in advertising fraud.

Jha also pleaded guilty on Wednesday to violating the computer fraud and abuse act in the District of New Jersey. According to the DOJ, between Nov. 2014 and Sept. 2016, Jha executed a series of attacks on the networks of Rutger University and his attacks effectively shut down the school's central authentication service.

At times, Jha succeeded in taking the portal offline for multi-day periods, fed say. Faculty and students used the portal to deliver assignments and assessments.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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