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UK Police Arrest Suspect Behind Mirai Malware Attacks On Deutsche Telekom (bleepingcomputer.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the do-not-pass-Go dept.

An anonymous reader writes: "German police announced Thursday that fellow UK police officers have arrested a suspect behind a serious cyber-attack that crippled German ISP Deutsche Telekom at the end of November 2016," according to BleepingComputer. "The attack in question caused over 900,000 routers of various makes and models to go offline after a mysterious attacker attempted to hijack the devices through a series of vulnerabilities..." The attacks were later linked to a cybercrime groups operating a botnet powered by the Mirai malware, known as Botnet #14, which was also available for hire online for on-demand DDoS attacks.

"According to a statement obtained by Bleeping Computer from Bundeskriminalamt (the German Federal Criminal Police Office), officers from UK's National Crime Agency (NCA) arrested a 29-year-old suspect at a London airport... German authorities are now in the process of requesting the unnamed suspect's extradition, so he can stand trial in Germany. Bestbuy, the name of the hacker that took credit for the attacks, has been unreachable for days."

26 comments

  1. It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does every German word seem to have double the number of letters that it really needs? It has to be terribly inefficient, this from a society that is extremely efficient in most things.

    1. Re:It's always bugged me. by Knuckles · · Score: 1

      Why does every German word seem to have double the number of letters that it really needs? It has to be terribly inefficient, this from a society that is extremely efficient in most things.

      That would be because you have no idea about German. Yes, German sentences tend to be a bit longer than English ones, but you can't measure efficiency this way. Also Federal Criminal Police Office in TFS is longer than Bundeskriminalamt

      --
      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    2. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Zeig Heil motherfucker!!!!!

    3. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's an extremely harsh language, with lots of consonents. I always suspected that the Klingon language was influenced heavily by German.

    4. Re:It's always bugged me. by prefec2 · · Score: 1

      On what vocabulary do you base your assessment? "Deutsche Telekom" means literally "German Telecom" and Bundes-kriminal-amt is translated to German Federal Criminal Police Office, literally Federal Detective Office.

    5. Re:It's always bugged me. by prefec2 · · Score: 1

      Not really. There are more ch and sh sounds by vocabulary, but not necessarily in spoken language. It might be helpful to conclude the sound of German based on Hitler speeches, Höcke speeches and https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    6. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not that there are more letters, it's that there are fewer spaces. In German, words are strung together to make compound words. For example, imagine if in English you said Federalinvestigationbureau instead of Federal Bureau of Investigation.

    7. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It sounds harsh to you and speakers of many other languages, because is has an obligatory phonetic rule that end consonants are always spoken without voice, not because it has more consonants than other languages.

    8. Re: It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      German words may be strung together almist at will, thereby conveniently shortening them. The "Bundeskriminalamt" would otherwise be the "Amt des Bundes für Kriminalistik".

    9. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sieg Zeon, feddie scum.

    10. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Could you give some examples? I've always been under the impression that German has very few silent letters compared to English or French.

    11. Re:It's always bugged me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      German sounds harsh to you? I wonder what your native language is. Mine is Dutch and I've always felt that German sounds much gentler.

  2. enjoy your stay! by v1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    the hacker that took credit for the attacks, has been unreachable for days."

    Yeah, it's hard to answer emails with those handcuffs on like that.

    Here's hoping you get extradited, successfully prosecuted, and turned into a good example for aspiring black-hats.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:enjoy your stay! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah and sentenced to a day in prison for each router he took down, so that is 900,000 days a sound punishment, or he is made to pay £900,000 and he is locked up until he pays that sum off in one go.

  3. Hacking for money will always remain profitable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... as long as authorities keep holding the hackers responsible for the blatant flaws of devices offered by telecom companies and ISPs, instead of the companies that produce extremely flawed devices. Hardware and software companies can really get away with anything, from easy to guess default passwords over grossly negligent and incompetent encryption implementations to failures to validate user input.

    1. Re:Hacking for money will always remain profitable by lactose99 · · Score: 2

      ...but but but that would add cumbersome regulations to business and discourage innovation!

      At least that's how some try to phrase it

      --
      Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
  4. Donald J. TRUMP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is carrying the NUCLEAR BRIEFCASE. How do u feel about that?

  5. Make it Your-self by Neuronwelder · · Score: 1

    This is the reason you make your own routers. You, you are the one who checks for vulnerabilities. Not some other country that could care less about you.

  6. I've already stalled it via my work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See subject & https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=10009063&cid=53507971/ even its DGA (it no longer uses per that article) via APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-7 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=&bih=&q=%22APK+Hosts+File+Engine%22+and+%22start64%22&btnG=Google+Search&gbv=1/

    * On DGA: Generating domain names means you have to PAY to register them (most botnets don't & are sinkholed OR blocked as I do it).

    APK

    P.S.=> A custom hosts file vs. botnets works 4 security & my program gets added speed (blocking ads + hardcoded favs @ top of hosts cached in RAM for fastest local resolution) - no other "so-called 'security solution'" does MORE 4 LESS - Antivirus/DNS/addons slow you down instead OR expose you to their numerous security issues (DNS & antivirus especially) as well as resource overuse by comparison to native hosts in pure kernelmode (vs. slower usermode) - browser addons are worst on that last account... apk

    1. Re:I've already stalled it via my work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have a troll mod you useless fat fuck.

  7. So it wasn't the Russians, for once? by ffkom · · Score: 2

    Didn't the press insinuate time and again this hack - like so many - must have been done by "the Russians2?

    Examples:
    http://www.tagesspiegel.de/med...
    https://www.welt.de/debatte/ko...
    https://www.welt.de/politik/de...

    1. Re:So it wasn't the Russians, for once? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

      The BND works with the NSA. The BND really don't want too many people in the EU or Germany or German gov working out their skill set or what they do with/for the NSA.
      http://www.dw.com/en/merkel-te... (16.02.2017)
      So the constant political talking point of the "Russian" ip range, timezone, code litter is politically better to have in the international and local tech media.
      If not Germans might ask about the quality of data protection and network security in Germany.
      Talking about Russia keep Germany asking about new German data protection laws, German funding to counter all advanced private sector crypto, networks, security funding, domestic politics, jobs, domestic telco security issues.
      Then reality finally emerges and the tech media talking points are exposed.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. www.esfileexplorerapk.com by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    es file explorer apk

  9. You're projecting unidentifiable offtopic fatboy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You project you're useless trolling off topic fat unidentifiable no balls coward loser I crushed before. Unidentifiable anonymous posts from you give it away (showing how DULL WITTED you truly are too, lol...)

    * Get some preparation H - you're butthurt & a cowardly loser dying a 1,000 deaths everyday & you know it... ashamed to use your REAL name online, instead using 'phantasyland' FAKE NAMES for your FAKE LIE of a life, lol (or unidentifiable ac posts), worm.

    APK

    P.S.=> It's YOUR FAULT you sit around being a do-nothing "ne'er-do-well" with no talent or skills to do better than I have you know - that's what you get for being a "millenial" LOSER hooked on the welfare tit (& probably heroin as many of "your kind", stupid losers with a sense of entitlement like the world fucking owes shitbrains like you a damn thing, are)... apk