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Author of BrickerBot Malware Retires, Says He Bricked 10 Million IoT Devices (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The author of BrickerBot -- the malware that bricks IoT devices -- has announced his retirement in an email to Bleeping Computer, also claiming to have bricked over 10 million devices since he started the "Internet Chemotherapy" project in November 2016. Similar to the authors of the Mirai malware, the BrickerBot developer dumped his malware's source code online, allowing other crooks to profit from his code. The code is said to contain at least one zero-day. In a farewell message left on hundreds of hacked routers, the BrickerBot author also published a list of incidents (ISP downtimes) he caused, while also admitting he is likely to have drawn the attention of law enforcement agencies. "There's also only so long that I can keep doing something like this before the government types are able to correlate my likely network routes (I have already been active for far too long to remain safe). For a while now my worst-case scenario hasn't been going to jail, but simply vanishing in the middle of the night as soon as some unpleasant government figures out who I am," the hacker said.
"And thanks for all the fish!" Reports say were his final words.
Screw jail. This guy needs to be drawn and quartered.
Let's find him and give him 10 million minutes in jail. One minute for the time it takes to restore each device.
so he was bricking IOT devices just to warn people of a potential threat of their IOT devices being bricked. Apparently logic isn't his strong point.
They're narcissistic sociopaths. They're adicted to karma and fame. They seek the spotlight like others seek cocaine.
He might have been frightened enough to lay low for a while, but he won't be able to stay out of the limelight for long, no more than thrill seekers can stay away from danger and adrenaline.
For a while now my worst-case scenario hasn't been going to jail, but simply vanishing in the middle of the night as soon as some unpleasant government figures out who I am," the hacker said.
It's 2017, FFS. In the West, that insane drivel stopped the day W left office, and is Putin going to throw you in the Gulag, or have a show trial, and the throw you in (a very nasty, but public) prison.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
(1) He's destroying devices that destroy privacy in themselves ... open Telnet ports
(2) He's destroying devices that are insecure by design
Not crying for the owners of this junk. He's indeed doing the Internet a service...
This guy is my hero.
Times 10 million devices. A billion dollar lawsuit filed against an individual might break some records.
And no, I'm not playing anything. Just noting something hypothetical here. Personally I want to see every buggy piece of shit IoT removed from the Internet. They can go start their own garbage network to run their shitbox hardware on.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It would have been better if his mother covered his face with a pillow when he was born...
10 million IoT which is an addition to 44 million metric tons of e-waste reported yesterday. Would've been better if he just patched thosed routers directly by closing those open telnet ports and ssh ports which were wide open to the internet.
Give this man a fucking prize.
Seriously, IoT devices should come with goddamn warning labels.
This device in known to the surgeon-general of cyberspace to pose a serous risk to your personal privacy, and the personal privacy of those around you. This device may also cause undesired network traffic, communicate with unauthorized systems, and promote the spread of malware to other network connected devices.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
... finally gets a job.
you could say he provied a free global security worth $100 million for us non boneheads that don't want unsecured IOT devices used in our daily lives. The dummies going around with unsecured $10 IOT devices should pick up the tab..
or finally gets kicked out of the basement.
cos only an infantile cvnt could possibly be bothered with such vapid mindlessness.
12yo seeks internet glory, becomes laughing stock instead.
total twaat.
I am admittedly lazy. Can someone point me at his source. I couldn't find it in a cursory google search. I'm not planning to use it in the wild, just curious about which exploits he used exactly.
thanks
this sig is deprecated
For a while now my worst-case scenario hasn't been going to jail, but simply vanishing in the middle of the night as soon as some unpleasant HR person figures out who I am
He was afraid of that already.
I don't think it's the "government types" that are unpleasant.
What a tool.
see title
I highly doubt he hasn't monetized this.
This shit is a wake up call. Like how Watchdogs 1 and 2 was a wake up call hidden in a game. Lets not end up like the shit hole world like in watch dogs 2 where government and corporations have be come entirely nontransparent whilst your average Joe or Jane is so transparent that those nontransparent Political/Corporate entity can monitor every thing you do + metaphorically have their hand up your ass like a puppet e.g tampering with what you see so as to unfairly bias your vote choose i cite this from the story line of watchdogs 2... and they treat you like products for making money rather than as as actual humans!
Switch it Off,Switch it On[SOSO] Solves 95% of all IT problems!
He did get a job.
The nation state actors who took him away
in the middle of the night wrote his farewell.
After all, they don't want to scare away
any other job candidates.