- After Mirai and Reaper, a new malware called Saposhi have been detected by cyber security agencies.
- As per the concerned agencies, Saposhi is capable of taking over electronic devices and turning them into ‘bots’, which can then be used for any purpose, including a Distributed Denial of Service attack which, with enough firepower, can cripple entire industries.
- Reaper: It was a highly evolved malware capable of not only hacking devices like Wi-Fi routers and security cameras, but also hiding its own presence in the bot — a device taken over by a malware.
- Mirai: Malware, Mirai, using a botnet of 5 lakh devices, had caused the servers of Dyn, a leading domain name service provider, to crash, affecting services of popular websites like Twitter, Netflix and Reddit.
- DDoS attacks: According to the the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a Central agency to deal with cyber attacks, malwares like Reaper, Mirai and Saposhi, are primarily aimed at DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. In this attack, the malware first creates a network of bots — called a botnet — and then uses the botnet to ping a single server at the same time.
- As the number of pings are far beyond the server’s capacity, the server crashes and denies service to its consumers. For example, if a large botnet attacks the server of a fleet cab provider, its server will crash, and scores of consumers will be unable to avail of its services, causing chaos in daily commuting as well as massive losses to the company. (Source: The Hindu)
