U.S. says hacker to plead guilty for role in 2016 cyber attacks

(Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Justice has caught one of the people involved in creating the Mirai botnet, a network of infected electronics equipment used to knock major websites offline in massive 2016 cyber attacks, according to court papers.

Paras Jha has agreed to plead guilty to computer-crimes charges in the case, according to federal court documents unsealed in Alaska on Tuesday.

The Mirai botnet was used to infect large numbers of internet-connected devices including webcams and video records, which were then turned into a digital army of bots that launched a series of attacks on websites and Internet infrastructure.

Those attacks included one in October 2016 on an internet infrastructure firm known as Dyn that disrupted access to major Internet firms including Twitter, Paypal and Spotify.