Source Code For IoT Botnet 'Mirai' Which Took Down Krebs On Security Website With DDoS Attack Released (krebsonsecurity.com)

As if the state of security wasn't already a headache worldwide, we now may have one more reason to worry about: a hacker has made available the source code that could allow more people to wage the kinds of extraordinary large assaults that recently knocked security news site KrebsOnSecurity offline. Brian Krebs reports:The source code that powers the "Internet of Things" (IoT) botnet responsible for launching the historically large distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against KrebsOnSecurity last month has been publicly released, virtually guaranteeing that the Internet will soon be flooded with attacks from many new botnets powered by insecure routers, IP cameras, digital video recorders and other easily hackable devices. The leak of the source code was announced Friday on the English-language hacking community Hackforums. The malware, dubbed "Mirai," spreads to vulnerable devices by continuously scanning the Internet for IoT systems protected by factory default or hard-coded usernames and passwords. Vulnerable devices are then seeded with malicious software that turns them into "bots," forcing them to report to a central control server that can be used as a staging ground for launching powerful DDoS attacks designed to knock Web sites offline. The Hackforums user who released the code, using the nickname "Anna-senpai," told forum members the source code was being released in response to increased scrutiny from the security industry.

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Re:Headline translation

[St.Creed]

Y2K was a big deal. That most people didn't notice much is a testament to what happens when you take something seriously, and get a lot of skilled people to work on a problem with a non-negotiable deadline.

This is absolutely true. The reason Y2K wasn't a big deal is because thousands of programmers sat down and fixed stuff. Otherwise, we would have seen all sorts of shit go belly up at the stroke of midnight on December 31st 1999.

Hell yeah. In our first tests after the bugs were fixed, literally NOTHING worked. They had forgotten to patch the login module and every password valid date was now suddenly in the past. 50 testers went home again that day, after an hour, on a saturday. Much grumbling ensued.

But... you know, at some point noone who was present at Y2K will be alive, but the people who denied that there ever was a problem will still be in abundant supply. It's saddening to see that if you just deny something happened, no matter what it is and no matter the documentation and witnesses, eventually sheer stupidity and mental inertia will bring you victory. Fighting entropy is *hard*.