A college student has solved a major cybersecurity mystery using a cat meme. Benjamin Brundage, a senior at the Rochester Institute of Technology, cracked the case of Kimwolf, a massive cyberweapon that was threatening to knock a state or small country offline.
Brundage used a six-second clip of a cat adjusting its tie to lighten the mood in an online chat with an anonymous user who had insider knowledge. The user eventually revealed a new vulnerability on the internet that threatened tens of millions of consumers and a quarter of the world's corporations.
Brundage's research impressed veteran researchers, including federal law enforcement, which took action against the network two weeks ago. Google used a U.S. court order to take down Ipidea, the company behind Kimwolf, and shut down dozens of servers.
The takedown of Kimwolf has disrupted four of the world's largest DDoS botnets, including Kimwolf, which had launched over 26,000 DDoS attacks targeting over 8,000 victims.
