There’s a new threat on the horizon, according to security researchers from Check Point. A group of hackers in China are busy building a massive botnet that so far, totals almost five million Android smartphones. The hackers are quietly taking control of these devices using a strain of malware known as “RottenSys.”
While the malware is flexible and can be adapted to any number of purposes, in its present incarnation, it’s being used to display copious numbers of advertisements. This generates a healthy revenue stream for the hackers, but that could be just the beginning. The researchers have found evidence that the hackers are gearing up for a campaign that could be much more far-reaching and damaging. According to Check Point: “This botnet will have extensive capabilities, including silently installing additional apps and UI automation.”
RottenSys is fairly new to the malware ecosystem, first appearing in September 2016. So far, the hackers have spent most of their time simply spreading their creation to more devices. At current count, the number of infected Android phones stands at 4,964,460, and it grows by the day.
It wasn’t until last month that RottenSys got an update that gave its owners the ability to take direct control of all the devices. Prior to that, they were happy to simply rake in ad revenue, which is estimated to exceed $350,000 a month.
Currently, the malware hasn’t spread beyond the confines of China, but that could easily change as the hackers seek to add an increasing number of devices to their already massive botnet.
What makes RottenSys notable is the fact that it has managed to spread to so many devices in such a short period of time. As it turns out, the secret to the hackers’ success has to do with the code it’s built around, which includes both “Small”, (an open source virtualization framework) and “MarsDaemon”, which is a library that keeps apps “undead,” which ensures that the malware’s processes continue to operate even after users close them. This ensures that the ad-injection capacity cannot be disabled.
Only time will tell what the hackers have planned, but it can’t be anything good. They’ll have a formidable botnet to do damage with. Stay tuned.
Wearable computing devices from smart watches to glasses are struggling to find an audience, and Google’s Android Wear operating system hasn’t gotten much love in recent years. It has weakened as major players in the tech space have struggled to find a market for these products. On the face of it, these products would seem to be wildly popular, but still haven’t quite captured the imaginations of a critical mass of the consuming public.
By now, you’ve almost certainly heard of “Spectre,” one of two recently discovered security flaws that impact every chip made by Intel in the last ten years.
According to a Microsoft security researcher, a massive malware attack attempted to install a cryptocurrency mining software on more than 400,000 computers in less than twelve hours. The failed campaign is noteworthy because of the attack vector used. It was a supply chain attack implemented by compromising Bittorrent, a highly popular program used to share and download files.
If your company has an incident response plan that you can rely on in the face of a cyber attack, then you’re ahead of most of the world, according to research recently conducted by the Ponemon Institute. Shockingly, more than 75 percent of survey respondents from around the world admitted that they have no formal incident response plan. Even worse, half of the companies that indicated they had an incident response plan said that it was informal.
There’s a fun, new update for Apple’s iMessage app that will probably make lots of power users happy. As long as you also have Google’s iOS app installed, you’ll be able to perform Google searches from within iMessage itself.
Freemium software is certainly nothing new. They are free apps that offer premium features if you don’t mind ads displaying while you’re using it or paying a small fee to have the ads removed. At least one company is trying a new business model on for size, albeit with limited success.
Marvell Semiconductor has a new product out, and it’s a game changer. Their new “Alaska” chip (the Alaska C 88×7120) is the first on the market to support the new 802.3 standard. The 802.3cd is on tap to eventually replace current Ethernet ports running at 25Gbps to 100Gbps with ports that will run at 50Gbps, 200 Gbps, and 400 Gbps.
If you post ads on Craigslist for short term employment, be aware that there’s a new malspam campaign that aims to distribute Sigma ransomware on the computers of unwary users.
