Digital Shadows, a provider of cyber situational awareness, released its new report Mirai and The Future, Forecasting the DDoS Landscape in 2017. Digital Shadows Report highlights the inherent vulnerability of basing network infrastructure around centralized DNS providers. The Mirai botnet is a type of malware that automatically finds Internet of Things (IoT) devices to infect. Its appearance earlier this year was hailed as a major development in malware but according to the report, this could be a tip of the iceberg as cybercriminals rush to adapt and develop the original Mirai code.
Mirai botnet is part of an emerging global trend of large and complex cyberattacks that are difficult to spot and even more difficult to prevent in an increasingly digitalised world. Countries in the Middle are witnessing significant economic and technological transformation due to growing business opportunities in large industries such as banking, financial services, insurance (BFSI) and the region’s dominance in heavy industries such as oil and gas.
“As organisations and individuals in the Middle East and especially the UAE and Saudi
Arabia turn increasingly towards internet enabled devices, it is even more critical there is better awareness of the problem,” said Rick Holland, VP Strategy at Digital Shadows. “Businesses selling Internet enabled devices have to be aware of the risks and do more to secure these devices. We are consumers, need to ensure we use the same degree of Cybersecurity scrutiny and awareness as we do surfing the web from a PC.”
“We know criminals move quickly to exploit new malware and techniques and find new ways to monetize them for profit,” said Holland. “So we can see a time when DDoS extortion actors have succeeded in creating new models for generating a ransom payment. Instead of solely relying on a target company, groups will use social media platforms to crowdsource the ransom payment from users who are dependent on the service,” Holland said.
Mirai has proven itself to be remarkably flexible and adaptable as a result of which hackers can develop different strains of Mirai that can take over new vulnerable IoT devices and increase the population Mirai botnets can draw on. The report suggests that 2017 is likely to see a range of new Mirai variants utilizing and adapting the original source code to target organizations and governments, by hacktivists, cybercriminals motivated by financial gain through extortion and politically motivate actors.
