Pentagon reportedly subjected to Rapper Bot botnet compromise

The U.S. Department of Defense Information Network has been subjected to at least three distributed denial-of-service attacks involving the highly powerful Rapper Bot botnet from April to August, according to DefenseScoop.

Intrusions have been aimed at Defense Department-owned or operated IP addresses, including those leveraged for public affairs sites and digital information resources, noted an official. "...[I]t depends on who the customer is and what theyre targeting. Sometimes its just random. Sometimes it's very specific, very targeted, and matching with other stuff that's going on around the world. I can't see what this was and what the pieces were but in this case, it was not the defense industrial base I mentioned earlier," the official said. Such a disclosure comes after Rapper Bot was dismantled by U.S. authorities, who have also pressed charges against the botnet's alleged developer and administrator Ethan Foltz. More than 370,000 intrusions have been conducted by Rapper Bot across 80 countries during the same period, with China, Japan, the U.S., Ireland, and Hong Kong being the leading targets.