In 2016, the Mirai botnet was used to take a significant portion of the internet offline. The cyber attacks resulted in people being unable to access a wide range of different sites, and was estimated to cost millions of dollars in lost revenue from ads, sales, and other things that were caused by the attack.
Three American men who were responsible for making and distributing the Mirai botnet have now pled guilty to the charges related to their role in these attacks.
Paras Jha, who is now 21, is the one who was primarily responsible for writing the code that made it possible to infect, and therefore control, millions of Internet of Things devices. He also pled guilty to hacking the Rutgers University computer system multiple times over the course of 2014-2016. These hacks caused the university to lose millions of dollars.
Dalton Norman, 21, and Josiah White, 20, pled guilty to the charges against them, which were related to the use of the Mirai botnet, and its development.
In addition to the charges directly related to the botnet, Jha and Norman were charged with crimes related to advertising fraud where they were able to steal 200 Bitcoins. Which today are worth nearly $4 million dollars.
The attorney for Jha released a statement saying, “Starting when he was just 19 years old, (Jha) made a series of mistakes with significant consequences that he only now fully appreciates. He is extremely remorseful and accepts full responsibility for his actions.”
