New Botnet Targets Improperly Secure IoT Devices

A massive new botnet has been found to be infecting poorly secured Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including IP wireless cameras.

To compromise a device, the malware attempts to exploit several different kinds of vulnerabilities often found in IP camera models, including vendors such as: GoAhead, D-Link, TP-Link, AVTECH, NETGEAR, MikroTik, Linksys, and Synology.

The threat first emerged at the end of September and Check Point believes that over a million organizations across the globe have already been hit.

Researchers believe that since the attempted attacks were coming from different sources and a slew of IoT devices, the compromised devices themselves were spreading the malware. After further analysis, it was revealed that hackers accessed the System.ini file to check for compromise. The file normally contains the credentials of the user, but instead, contains a ‘Netcat’ command to open a reverse shell to the attackers IP instead.

Security researchers have found a possible connection to Mirai, but claim this campaign is much more sophisticated than last year’s Mirai attack.

The development of IoT Devices does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon. Experts expect there to be over 20 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2020, so it’s important that these devices are properly secured with adequate protection in place to keep IoT devices safe from cybercriminals.

NNT suggests implementing System & Device Hardening measures to ensure Botnets are not established in the first place, but should malware be present on an IoT device or traditional computing system, it’s detected so it can then be removed before any damage is done.

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