A trio of hackers who orchestrated a denial of service attack that hijacked thousands of IOT devices are now cooperating with the FBI. Initially, their goal was to take down rival Minecraft users’ hosts, but they somehow caused much more damage than they intended.
The original article about the crime is here: https://www.wired.com/story/mirai-botnet-minecraft-scam-brought-down-the-internet/
You can check out the Mirai source code on Github here: https://github.com/jgamblin/Mirai-Source-Code
It is wise of the FBI and other agencies in the US to recruit these people instead of sentencing them to prison, assuming they aren’t complete sociopaths. The old system of requiring clearances in order to make an impact is frustrating, un-enticing and prevents talent from entering the government. If we can allow more people with skills in this area into the cyber security realm in our government in an expedited process, our country’s cyber security game will be substantially improved. In all likelihood, very few of these prospective employees would pass a background check.
https://www.wired.com/story/mirai-botnet-creators-fbi-sentencing/
This isn’t all that surprising, this is another version of the movie “Catch me if you can” staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom hanks. I belive at certain times our government elite groups know when their are beat an accept that they need specialized help from the “bad guys.” I remember once reading that the FBI had to remove marijuana drug testing from their cybercrime division because when it was instated the FBI was unable to recruit the talent that they needed.
I think the most fascinating fact that I learned from this article is that the group behind the Mirai botnet had no intention for the scope of their damage. They may have wrote Mirai competitor but what they created is so effective that if you just change the target… you cripple the entire internet.