Tag Archives: applej4ck

Correcting the Record on vDOS Prosecutions

November 21, 2017
11 Comments

KrebsOnSecurity recently featured a story about a New Mexico man who stands accused of using the now-defunct vDOS attack-for-hire service to hobble the Web sites of several former employers. That piece stated that I wasn’t aware of any other prosecutions related to vDOS customers, but as it happens there was a prosecution in the United Kingdom earlier this year of a man who’s admitted to both using and helping to administer vDOS. Here’s a look at some open-source clues that may have led to the U.K. man’s arrest.

Who is Anna-Senpai, the Mirai Worm Author?

January 18, 2017
248 Comments

On September 22, 2016, this site was forced offline for nearly four days after it was hit with “Mirai,” a malware strain that enslaves poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices like wireless routers and security cameras into a botnet for use in large cyberattacks. Roughly a week after that assault, the individual(s) who launched that attack — using the name “Anna Senpai” — released the source code for Mirai, spawning dozens of copycat attack armies online.

After months of digging, KrebsOnSecurity is now confident to have uncovered Anna Senpai’s real-life identity, and the identity of at least one co-conspirator who helped to write and modify the malware.

KrebsOnSecurity Hit With Record DDoS

September 21, 2016
122 Comments

On Tuesday evening, KrebsOnSecurity.com was the target of an extremely large and unusual distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack designed to knock the site offline. The attack did not succeed thanks to the hard work of the engineers at Akamai, the company that protects my site from such digital sieges. But according to Akamai, it was nearly double the size of the largest attack they’ve seen previously, and was among the biggest assaults the Internet has ever witnessed.

Alleged vDOS Proprietors Arrested in Israel

September 10, 2016
97 Comments

Two young Israeli men alleged to be the co-owners of a popular online attack-for-hire service were reportedly arrested in Israel on Thursday. The pair were arrested around the same time that KrebsOnSecurity published a story naming them as the masterminds behind a service that can be hired to knock Web sites and Internet users offline with powerful blasts of junk data.

Israeli Online Attack Service ‘vDOS’ Earned $600,000 in Two Years

September 8, 2016
88 Comments

vDOS — a so-called “booter” service that has earned in excess of $600,000 over the past two years helping customers coordinate more than 150,000 so-called distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks designed to knock Web sites offline — has been massively hacked, spilling secrets about tens of thousands of paying customers and their targets.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com at the end of July 2016, points to two young men in Israel as the principle owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com, points to two young men in Israel as the principle owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.

The vDOS database, obtained by KrebsOnSecurity.com, points to two young men in Israel as the principle owners and masterminds of the attack service, with support services coming from several young hackers in the United States.