Three young hackers went from believing they were "untouchable" to helping the FBI stop future cyberattacks.
The trio of hackers behind the Mirai botnet -- one of the most powerful tools used for cyberattacks -- has been working with the FBI for more than a year, according to court documents filed last week.
Now the government is recommending they be sentenced to continue assisting the FBI, instead of a maximum five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
"By working with the FBI, the defendants assisted in thwarting potentially devastating cyberattacks and developed concrete strategies for mitigating new attack methods," US attorneys said in a motion filed Sept. 11. "The information provided by the defendants has been used by members of the cybersecurity community to safeguard US systems and the Internet as a whole."
hackers' help, prosecutors have asked that the community service requirement be bumped up to 2,500 hours, which would include "continued work with the FBI on cybercrime and cybersecurity matters."
DDoS attacks send massive amounts of traffic to websites that can't handle the load, with the intention of shutting them down. Mirai took over hundreds of thousands of computers and connected devices like security cameras and DVRs, and directed them for cyberattacks and traffic scams.
Helping the FBI
The three hackers pleaded guilty in December, but had been helping the government with cybersecurity for 18 months, even before they were charged. Prosecutors estimated they've worked more than 1,000 hours with the FBI -- about 25 weeks in a typical workplace.
That includes working with FBI agents in Anchorage, Alaska, to find botnets and free hacker-controlled computers, and building tools for the FBI like a cryptocurrency analysis program.
