Mirai Botnet Emergence

The Mirai botnet, leveraging compromised IoT devices, began to emerge, showcasing the potential for unprecedentedly large-scale DDoS attacks that year. This highlighted the urgent need for robust DDoS protection.

Significance

Mirai demonstrated the new era of massive, volumetric DDoS attacks, underscoring the inadequacy of traditional defenses and providing a critical backdrop for AWS Shield's launch.