How a Dorm Room Minecraft Scam Brought Down the Internet ◇ ~5,800 words ◇ The most dramatic cybersecurity story of 2016 came to a quiet conclusion Friday in an Anchorage courtroom, as three young American computer savants pleaded guilty to masterminding an unprecedented botnet—powered by unsecured internet-of-things devices like security cameras and wireless routers—that unleashed sweeping attacks on key internet services around the globe last fall. What drove them wasn’t anarchist politics or shadowy ties to a nation-state. It was Minecraft.

Garrett M. Graff ※ Wired ※ wired.com ※ December 13, 2017