A massive botnet of hacked Internet of Things devices has been implicated in the cyberattack that caused a significant internet outage on Friday, October 21st.

The botnet, which is powered by the malware known as Mirai, is in part responsible for the attack that intermittently knocked some popular websites offline, according to Level 3 Communications, one of the world’s largest internet backbone providers, and security firm Flashpoint.

“We are seeing attacks coming from a number of different locations. We’re seeing attacks coming from an Internet of Things botnet that we identified called Mirai, also involved in this attack,” Dale Drew, chief security officer at Level 3 Communications, said on a livestream on Friday afternoon.

Source: Blame the Internet of Things for Destroying the Internet Today | Motherboard