This advanced threat has been declared as the Reaper botnet and performs other attacks look childish. Mira worked by affecting unsecured devices with default passwords to add them to the botnet. The Reaper runs by actively hacking and infiltrating millions of devices throughout the globe. News described it as “the contrast between checking for open doors and actively picking locks.”
The Reaper malware includes some of the Mirai source code but has considerably expanded its risk and potential. Rather than choosing common passwords, Reaper uses known vulnerabilities to inject its code into the victim. This provides it to grow at a much faster rate.
The malware has now been discovered on 60% of networks controlled by Checkpoint. The vulnerable device includes devices from GoAhead, D-Link, TP-Link, Netgear, AVTech, MikroTik, Linksys, Synology, and some parts of Linux. Many of these device companies have released patches for the vulnerabilities, but most users don’t apply them.
There are millions of devices already operating the Lua-based software that will allow the botnet owners to fill their attack modules. There have been no recorded uses of the botnet, but the code shows it’s on standby waiting for a signal to start the barrage of DDoS attacks.
Mirai had a bandwidth capping 1Tbps and was able to take down sites like GitHub, Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, and Airbnb. Reaper is far further sophisticated and has the potential to launch attacks on a scale never seen before experts suggest.
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