IoT Malware Activity Already More Than Doubled 2016 Numbers
The number of new malware samples in the wild this year targeting connected internet-of-things (IoT) devices has already more than doubled last year’s total.
Honeypots laid out by Kaspersky Lab researchers mimicking a number of connected devices running Linux have attracted more than 7,200 different malware samples through May, all bent on infecting connected devices over telnet and SSH primarily. Last year, Kaspersky detected 3,200 samples.
“After just a few seconds we saw the first attempted connections to the open telnet port. Over a 24-hour period there were tens of thousands of attempted connections from unique IP addresses,” researchers wrote in a report published today on Securelist.com.
Mirai showed cybercriminals the way last fall, using malware to corral DVRs, IP-enabled cameras and home networking gear into a giant IoT botnet that was used to DDoS a number of high-profile targets. The malware spawned a number of variants and copycats, including the destructive BrickerBot malware family that bricks vulnerable IoT devices running with telnet exposed to the internet with default passwords. Read more…
