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posted by janrinok on Sunday April 12 2020, @04:17PM   Printer-friendly
from the tricky dept.

Meet dark_nexus, quite possibly the most potent IoT botnet ever:

A newly discovered botnet that preys on home routers, video recorders, and other network-connected devices is one of the most advanced Internet-of-things platforms ever seen, researchers said on Wednesday. Its list of advanced features includes the ability to disguise malicious traffic as benign, maintain persistence, and infect devices that run on at least 12 different CPUs[*].

Researchers from antivirus provider Bitdefender described the so-called dark_nexus as a "new IoT botnet packing new features and capabilities that put to shame most IoT botnets and malware that we've seen." In the three months that Bitdefender has tracked it, dark_nexus has undergone 30 version updates, as its developer has steadily added more features and capabilities.

The malware has infected at least 1,372 devices, which include video recorders, thermal cameras, and home and small office routers made by Dasan, Zhone, Dlink, and ASUS. Researchers expect more device models to be affected as dark_nexus development continues.

[...] The botnet has propagated both by guessing common administrator passwords and exploiting security vulnerabilities. Another feature that increases the number of infected devices is its ability to target systems that run on a wide range of CPUs[*]

[...] Bitdefender's report said that while the dark_nexus propagation modules contain code targeting ARC and Motorola RCE architectures, researchers have so far been unable to find malware samples compiled for these architectures.

[*] The executables are all statically linked and stripped. Except for x86 which has a 64-bit executable, all others are 32-bit. The targeted architectures are: arm5, arm6, arm7, mpsl, mips, i586, x86, spc, m68k, ppc, arc, sh4, rce. The researchers have examined samples of all of these except for arc and rce.


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @05:35PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @05:35PM (#981598) Journal

    Dark Nexus sounds like a new brand for Android devices.

    Nexus 7 tablet (please, PLEASE bring back the 2013 Nexus 7 model)

    Nexus 6P phone.

    Etc.

    I suppose that branding would not be mutually exclusive with malware.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:51PM (2 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:51PM (#981646)

    I, too, would like high quality tablets in the 7-9 inch screen size range - SIM/data capable in the sub $400 price range.

    However, with 6.2" phone/phablets knocking on that door from the under-side, I don't think there's really a market to build these "tablets" for...

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    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:30PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 12 2020, @07:30PM (#981664) Journal

      Yes. I only buy HUGE phones now. And NOT because I want someone asking "Is that a Pixel 3 XL in your pocket? . . ."

      I miss my Nexus 7.

      One time at the taco place, when I set it down on the counter to read off the combined order for several people, he obviously recognized the Hangouts app. He asked . . . "is that a phone?"

      I said: Yes. So that it has a dial keypad large enough for me to be able to read the digits.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @02:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @02:12AM (#981800)

      I would like higher quality names for these malware networks.