ZingBox researchers reported several indicators linking Lizard Squad-associated actors and BigBotPein to Mirai-related activity. The indicators suggest a relationship, but they do not prove that Lizard Squad created the original Mirai botnet. Reporting on the FBI investigation identifies Paras Jha and Josiah White as Mirai’s creators, with Dalton Norman joining later.
What evidence did ZingBox cite?
ZingBox said it identified “four distinct activities” that could link Lizard Squad with Mirai’s authors. The report’s indicators involved timing, shared hosting, an attack, and references on a website associated with Lizard Squad. They are circumstantial evidence of a connection, not four conclusive proofs of who wrote the original malware.
- Timing of the source-code release: Mirai’s source code became public nine days after Lizard Squad founder Zachary Buchta was arrested. The sequence is an association in time; it does not by itself show who released the code or who developed Mirai.
- Overlapping hosting: The Ukrainian hosting provider Blazingfast was used by Mirai authors and by BigBotPein, which ZingBox linked to Lizard Squad. Shared use of a provider can indicate an operational connection, but it does not alone establish common authorship.
- An attack after online criticism: Mirai authors launched a major DDoS attack against journalist Brian Krebs’s website after an online exchange in which Krebs criticized Lizard Squad. The timing links the incident to that public dispute, but does not make the attack proof that Lizard Squad authored Mirai.
- Mirai references on a related website: ZingBox reported finding Mirai references on a Lizard Squad-associated website hosted at
fucklevel3[.]wang. A website reference is evidence of association or interest, not definitive proof of malware development.
ZingBox also cautioned that some dates in its timeline represent when researchers detected malware, not necessarily when it first appeared in the wild. That distinction matters: a detection date should not be treated as a confirmed first-use date.
How did Mirai’s history complicate attribution?
Mirai emerged in 2016 as malware that infected routers and other internet-connected devices. Infected devices could be assembled into a botnet used for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Once Mirai’s source code was released publicly, other actors could use or modify it, creating a distinction between the people who developed the original malware and those who later used its code, variants, or infrastructure.
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Coverage of the FBI investigation names Paras Jha and Josiah White as Mirai’s developers, with Dalton Norman joining their work later. That reporting also describes rivalry between their group and Lizard Squad, including competition over compromised Internet of Things devices. The rivalry and overlap help explain why the groups appear in the same account, but they do not collapse into a single authorship claim.
What does “connected to Mirai” mean here?
Attribution can refer to different kinds of involvement. ZingBox’s indicators concern possible links among actors and Mirai-related activity; they do not establish that every person or group mentioned had the same role.
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- Original authorship: Who developed the initial Mirai malware. The available reporting identifies Jha and White, with Norman joining later.
- Later use or modification: Public source code allowed other actors to run or adapt Mirai. Using a Mirai variant does not identify the original developers.
- Shared infrastructure or overlapping activity: Using the same hosting provider, appearing in related online exchanges, or being discussed on an associated website may support a connection, but each indicator has limits.
What can readers conclude?
The strongest supported conclusion is that ZingBox reported multiple circumstantial indicators connecting Lizard Squad-associated actors and BigBotPein to Mirai-related activity. The indicators are worth considering together, but the cited reporting does not establish that Lizard Squad created the original Mirai botnet. The distinction between original developers and later users of publicly available code is essential to understanding the claim.
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Sources
- ZingBox report on Lizard Squad and BigBotPein (PDF mirror hosted by Hackread).
- The CyberWire’s contemporaneous summary.
- TechTarget coverage of the FBI investigation and Mirai developers.
- IEEE Spectrum’s background on Mirai and its developers.
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