Assignment: Discussion Board

Background

Botnet - "A botnet is a group of computers (or other devices such as servers, mobile devices or IOT devices) connected in a coordinated fashion for malicious purposes. Each computer in a botnet is called a bot. These bots form a network of compromised computers, which is controlled by a third party and used to transmit malware or spam, or to launch attacks" ("Botnet", 2018)
Botnets are also called zombie armies (Turban, Volonino & Wood, 2015)

"An attacker will often target computers (or other devices such as webcams) not safeguarded with firewalls and/or anti-virus software. A botnet manipulator can get control of a computer in a variety of ways, but most frequently does so via viruses or worms. Botnets are significant because they have become tools that both hackers and organized crime use to perform illegal activities online. For example, hackers use botnets to launch coordinated denial-of-service attacks, while organized crime uses botnets as ways to spam, or send a phishing attack that is then used for identify theft" ("Botnet" 2018)

In many instances, the device owner does not know that their computer, phone or other device has been compromised. ("Botnet", 2018)

"Common tasks executed by botnets include:

Using your machine's power to assist in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks to shut down websites.

Emailing spam out to millions of Internet users.

Generating fake Internet traffic on a third-party website for financial gain.

Replacing banner ads in your web browser specifically targeted at you.

Pop-ups ads designed to get you to pay for the removal of the botnet through a phony anti-spyware package.

The short answer is that a botnet is hijacking your computer to do what botnets do -- carry out mundane tasks -- faster and better" ("What is a botnet", 2017)

In August 2016, 3 US University students created the Mirai Botnet in order to gain a sales advantage in the online Minecraft game. (Graff, 2017)

This botnet grew and mutated to the point where it was "unleashing sweeping attacks on key internet services around the globe..." (Graff, 2017)

"Mirai shocked the internet-and its own creators, according to the FBI-with its power as it grew. Researchers later determined that it infected nearly 65,000 devices in its first 20 hours, doubling in size every 76 minutes, and ultimately built a sustained strength of between 200,000 and 300,000 infections" (Graff, 2017)

"The new malware scanned the internet for dozens of different IoT devices that still used the manufacturers' default security setting. Since most users rarely change default usernames or passwords, it quickly grew into a powerful assembly of weaponized electronics, almost all of which had been hijacked without their owners' knowledge" (Graff, 2017)

"At its peak, the self-replicating computer worm had enslaved some 600,000 devices around the world-which, combined with today's high-speed broadband connections, allowed it to harness an unprecedented flood of network-clogging traffic against target websites. It proved particularly tough for companies to fight against and remediate, too, as the botnet used a variety of different nefarious traffic to overwhelm its target, attacking both servers and applications that ran on the servers, as well as even older techniques almost forgotten in modern DDoS attacks" (Graff, 2017)

The primary targets for the Mirai botnets were Minecraft servers.

Inside the game, individual hosted-servers allow users to link together in multiplayer mode, and as the game has grown, hosting those servers has turned into big business-players pay real money both to rent "space" in Minecraft as well as purchase in-game tools (Graff, 2017)

Mirai attempted to take down these servers with these DDoS attacks that would slow connections. Customers would be driven away from the Mirai perpetrators' competition (Graff, 2017)

Eventually, in connection with an attack on a primary internet support provider that slowed down internet connectivity for the entire US East Coast, the 3 college students were caught. In December, 2017, in the US District Court for the District of Alaska, they pleaded guilty to conspiracy and are facing fines and potentially, prison time (Krebs, 2018)

Task

So, what is Mirai and how do it, and other botnets, work?
How dangerous are they?
Why do they spread so easily?
What can you do about them?

Read, Review and Discuss the article entitled "DDoS in the IoT: Mirai and other Botnets". This article can be found in the Week 4 Revised Powerpoints and other stuff folder Focus on and discuss how Mirai worked, other IoT botnets that are out there, why they spread so easily and what you can do to lessen/avoid their impact.

In your posts, make sure to include FREQUENT in text cites to specific pages in the article that discuss these points - Initial cite - (Kolas, Kambourakis, Stavrou & Voas, 2017), all subsequent cites (Kolas, et al., 2017). If you use resources other than the article you MUST cite ACCURATELY in text to them as well. Any and all resources used MUST be listed at the end of your posts.

Access the Board at the link in the Week 5 folder. Post your submission and respond to AT LEAST 3 OF YOUR CLASS COLLEAGUES. The Board will open at 11:59 pm on Monday, February 12, 2018 @ 11:59 pm and will close on Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 11:59 pm. This assignment is worth 10 marks towards your final grade.

References

"Botnet" (2018). In Techopedia online.

Graff, G.M. (2017). How a dorm room minecraft scam brought down the internet. Wired.
Krebs, B. (2017, December 17). Mirai IoT Botnet Co-authors Plead Guilty.
Rouse, M. (n.d.). Botnet.
Symantic Corporation. (n.d.). What is a botnet.
Turban, E., Volonino, L., and Wood, G. (2015). Information technology for management: digital strategies for insight, action and sustainable performance, (10th ed.) Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.