Author releases malware source code that infected IoT devices

Trojan software author publishes source code for malware that caused denial of service in hundreds of thousands of Internet enabled devices

Cyber

By Allie Sanchez

The author of the malware known as Mirai released the source code of his Trojan software in an online hackers’ forum following distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices, according to reports.

Anna-senpai, the author of the malware, released Mirai, after it created a botnet (an army of Internet enabled devices that unwittingly forward viruses to other devices) that infected almost 400,000 devices every day.

However, the attacks reached a turning point when a security blogger was hacked and catalyzed Internet service providers (ISPs) to take action and block infected devices from the network. The number of infections has since gone down to 300,000 per day, reports said.

Notably, these infections are short lived because they can be eliminated with a reboot of the device. To maintain their size, botnets have to find and re-infect these devices every day.

Industry observers say things are bound to get worse because the IoT device market is expanding exponentially, while many of these devices still come with basic security holes.

Keep up with the latest news and events

Join our mailing list, it’s free!