The control panel for the Rapper Bot botnet greets users with the message “Welcome to the Ball Pit, Now with refrigerator support,” an apparent reference to a handful of IoT-enabled refrigerators that were enslaved in their DDoS botnet.

Prosecutors said the network created by 22-year-old Ethan Foltz is "one of the most sophisticated and powerful DDoS-for-hire Botnets currently in existence."

Since at least 2021, the federal government says, the "Rapper Bot" DDoS-for-hire botnet launched "large-scale cyber attacks." Now, an Oregon man—Ethan Foltz, 22—has been accused of being behind the powerful botnet. How powerful and destructive was it?