This post was made on 11/09/2018.
A new botnet was recently discovered by security researchers with over 100,000 infected machines. This botnet infects computers with UPnP enabled.
UPnP stands for Universal Plug and Play and is used to share data by devices with UPnP with other devices that use UPnP. These devices are aware of other devices and are constantly sharing data with each other.
The botnet uses the UPnP to try and infect the user with a URL that will give the bots the ability to communicate with your email. Researcher’s believe these bots are using the emails to send spam mail in order to catch more victims in it’s network and exploit them for money.
This botnet was coded in a very organized fashion and was well written. This means that the creator of this botnet knows what he/she is doing and could be very tricky to track down.
These botnets have the ability to scam a large number of people in very little time. Who really knows how much money is being made from this, but judging by all the trouble of getting or coding a botnet its probably a really high amount. It really is the ideal way of scamming people because all the botnet creator has to do is regulate the botnet and make sure it’s doing it’s job. You can’t exactly track these guys either because most botnets are constantly jumping from one domain to another in order to not get tracked, and it works.
If we are ever going to be able to deal with cyber threats in the future, then we’re going to have to find a way to properly deal with botnets. Botnets are only going to become more and more common as technology advances and more people see the potential of using them for their own malicious purposes. Computer security researchers certainly have their work cut out for them in the future in trying to stop botnets and it’s certainly no easy task. Researchers currently have no solution to stop botnets but we can prevent them from spreading. If researchers found a way to secure the UPnP then this will prevent other botnets from using the same exploit, making it harder on the botmaster to spread bots. Perhaps if we also educated the public on botnets and let them know how they can prevent their computers from being infected by them, then maybe we’ll see a major slowdown in botnet usage.
Cyberleech 