Posted on November 24, 2019 at 11:19 PM

Botnet Creator Confesses to Hacking Over 800,000 Devices

Just aged 21, a man based in Washington has confessed and pleaded guilty to creating botnets that transformed more than 800,000 devices into cash-spinning denial-of-service units. These units had the ability to cripple the whole Web hosting communities.

These devices include cameras, routes and other types of gadgets. His name is Kenneth Currin Schuchman of Vancouver and he has admitted on Tuesday that he was the brain behind this massive attack.

Unraveling the Mystery

The confession of Schuchman was available in the documents from federal court. The documents showed that there were two other co-conspirators who coordinated Sartori. There were also at the very minimum, two other botnets and these in all affected over 800,000 devices.

What these conspirators did at that point was to sell denial-of-service attacks to those who could afford it. During the last quarter of 2018, Schuchman created a fresh botnet. This was during a supervisory release after he was already accused of committing the crimes.

In addition to creating the botnet, he also set up a swatting attack on one of those with whom he had planned the entire hacking scheme. This was supposed to be a part of a plea bargain deal.

Going Deeper

As contained in the federal court documents, the whole scenario goes back as far as late 2016. That time, a botnet named Mirai transformed the DDoS paradigm. This was done by taking advantage of two characteristics of the devices.

With their immense numbers and horrible record of security, jeopardizing the architecture was not difficult at all. What Mirai did then was to scour the Web for devices that have been secured with easy-to-break passwords.

Anytime the botnet detected one, it went straight into the action and in doing so, it could take over even far bigger systems. It triggers useless traffic until the entire system is overwhelmed. In a matter of weeks, the botnet was spreading its terror, as clones kept spreading and wreaking more havoc.

It Is Not Over Yet

It was also discovered that Schuchman made use of the Mirai source code to come up with his own item. He even disclosed that the botnet assisted him and his fellow accused of their crimes. In one instance, they were able to break into 32,000 devices. These devices belonged to a Canadian ISP. He explained that it was this success that motivated him to DDoS targets and these were not just any targets.

The targets in question here are those with a bandwidth of 1 terabit per second. The basis of their success has been traced to a number of features. The more prominent of these was the exploitation of all flaws and weaknesses in the security system of the devices. They were able to crack even devices that were secured by powerful passwords.

His confession showed that the team had very elaborate plans that went beyond regular hacking. Their ultimate plan was to upgrade their Satori and have their own DDoS franchise. That would have allowed them to expand their network of hacking even beyond what they already achieved.