The Mirai malware, named after an anime film character, initially was designed to create an advantage for players of the online game Minecraft. Mirai hijacked and enslaved poorly secured Internet of Things devices to create a botnet that included computer routers, security cameras, and baby monitors. The botnet then could be deployed to hobble their Minecraft competitors. Jha and his buddies, however, soon discovered the Mirai botnet also could be used to launch widespread distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) for criminal purposes that throttled internet service providers and websites.