Tag: inthewild

17 JAN

In-the-wild malware preys on computers dedicated to mining cryptocurrency

Enlarge / A cryptocurrency mining farm. (credit: Marco Krohn) Satori—the malware family that wrangles routers, security cameras, and other Internet-connected devices into potent botnets—is crashing the cryptocurrency party with a new variant that surreptitiously infects computers dedicated to the mining of digital coins. A version of Satori that appeared on January 8 exploits one or […]

10 MAY

Microsoft’s recent success in blocking in-the-wild attacks is eerily good

Enlarge (credit: Stephen Brashear / Getty Images News) Microsoft engineers have neutralized a series of attacks that took control of targeted computers by exploiting independent vulnerabilities in Word and Windows. Remarkably, the software maker said fixes or partial mitigations for all four security bugs were released before it received private reports of the attacks. Both […]

07 APR

Rash of in-the-wild attacks permanently destroys poorly secured IoT devices

Enlarge (credit: Guinnog) Researchers have uncovered a rash of ongoing attacks designed to damage routers and other Internet-connected appliances so badly that they become effectively inoperable. PDoS attack bots (short for “permanent denial-of-service”) scan the Internet for Linux-based routers, bridges, or similar Internet-connected devices that require only factory-default passwords to grant remote administrator access. Once the […]