Security researchers discovered modified versions of the Mirai and Gafgyt Internet of Things (IoT) malware that are capable of targeting vulnerabilities affecting SonicWall’s Global Management System (GMS) and Apache Struts.

Earlier this month, Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 found a domain hosting a variant of the Mirai botnet containing exploits for 16 separate vulnerabilities. One of those flaws was an Apache Struts vulnerability associated with a major 2017 data breach — the first time security professionals observed Mirai targeting Apache Struts, a framework used for developing web applications.

The researchers’ analysis of Mirai led them to observe that the malicious domain previously resolved to a different IP address. Further investigation revealed that the IP address intermittently hosted a version of the Gafgyt botnet containing an exploit for CVE-2018-9866, a vulnerability affecting an older version of SonicWall’s GMS.

Mirai and Gafgyt Signal Shift Toward Enterprise-Level Attacks

Both Mirai and Gafgyt have been around for some time. Even so, Unit 42 detected three new attack campaigns from the two malware families in May 2018. The offensives also leveraged vulnerabilities affecting IoT devices, but those products were all consumer-oriented. The Unit 42 researchers posited that the addition of vulnerabilities targeting Apache Struts and SonicWall’s GMS could signal a shift toward attack campaigns targeting enterprise-level devices.

How to Defend Against IoT Malware

Security professionals can protect data privacy at the workplace by creating a dedicated incident response team to remediate vulnerabilities and disclose data breaches to the public. They should also consider investing in data protection solutions and conducting gap analyses to monitor the data generated by their employer’s IoT devices.

Finally, security personnel should aim to isolate IoT devices on their own network and establish access controls between these products and critical IT resources.

Sources: Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks(1)

More from

Vulnerability resolution enhanced by integrations

2 min read - Why speed is of the essence in today's cybersecurity landscape? How are you quickly achieving vulnerability resolution?Identifying vulnerabilities should be part of the daily process within an organization. It's an important piece of maintaining an organization’s security posture. However, the complicated nature of modern technologies — and the pace of change — often make vulnerability management a challenging task.In the past, many organizations had to support manual integration work to get different security systems to ‘talk’ to each other. As…

How I got started: SIEM engineer

2 min read - As careers in cybersecurity become increasingly more specialized, Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) engineers are playing a more prominent role. These professionals are like forensic specialists but are also on the front lines protecting sensitive information from the relentless onslaught of cyber threats. SIEM engineers meticulously monitor, analyze and manage security events and incidents within an organization. They leverage SIEM tools to aggregate and correlate data, enabling them to detect anomalies, identify potential threats and respond swiftly to security…

Tequila OS 2.0: The first forensic Linux distribution in Latin America

3 min read - Incident response teams are stretched thin, and the threats are only intensifying. But new tools are helping bridge the gap for cybersecurity pros in Latin America.IBM Security X-Force Threat Intelligence Index 2023 found that 12% of the security incidents X-force responded to were in Latin America. In comparison, 31% were in the Asia-Pacific, followed by Europe with 28%, North America with 25% and the Middle East with 4%. In the Latin American region, Brazil had 67% of incidents that X-Force…

Cost of a data breach 2023: Geographical breakdowns

4 min read - Data breaches can occur anywhere in the world, but they are historically more common in specific countries. Typically, countries with high internet usage and digital services are more prone to data breaches. To that end, IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023 looked at 553 organizations of various sizes across 16 countries and geographic regions, and 17 industries. In the report, the top five costs of a data breach by country or region (measured in USD millions) for 2023…