New KATARU IoT Malware Packs Linux Privilege Escalation Exploits and Mirai-Style DDoS Attacks
Nozomi Networks identified KATARU, a new Mirai-style IoT botnet delivered via Telnet brute force that uses Linux privilege-escalation exploits and encrypted C2 for DDoS floods.
Nozomi Networks identified KATARU in August after a Telnet password-guessing attack against a honeypot retrieved an ARM payload. The malware attempts exploits for CVE-2026-46300 (Fragnesia), CVE-2026-43284 (DirtyFrag), and CVE-2026-31431 (Copy Fail), plus a cgroup v1 release_agent escape, and persists via systemd services, cron tasks, rc scripts, OpenWrt hooks, and Android boot locations. Its C2 uses X25519 key exchange with ChaCha20-Poly1305 encryption and supports TCP, UDP, ICMP, HTTP, QUIC, and DNS floods, plus SSH brute forcing and command execution; embedded exploit shellcode in the ARM build targeted x86, suggesting untested copied code.
Hackers Turn More Than 3,500 Redis Servers Into Cryptocurrency Miners
Hunters.io researchers report 3,562 exposed Redis servers hijacked via replication abuse into Monero cryptomining, causing performance loss and data-integrity risk.
Researchers at Hunters.io exposed a cryptomining operation that compromised 3,562 distinct Redis servers after scanning 12,966 targets. The attackers used unauthenticated Redis instances and master-replica replication to plant a cron task that downloaded and ran XMRig every five minutes. The miner connects to a mining pool over encrypted port 443 and hides among temporary files. Impact includes high CPU usage, elevated cloud bills, and data-loss risk from altered Redis persistence settings.
Microsoft Tracks MacSync Stealer by Its Behavior, Not Its Domains
Microsoft correlates over 30 rotating domains to track MacSync Stealer, which steals passwords, SSH keys, wallets and AWS credentials.
Microsoft Defender Experts tracked MacSync Stealer, a macOS information stealer, by analyzing recurring behaviors rather than individual domains, linking over 30 domains to the campaign. The infection chain uses the ClickFix social engineering technique, tricking victims into pasting commands in Terminal, then uses curl, AppleScript, and native macOS tools to deploy the payload. The stealer targets Keychain data, browser passwords and cookies, SSH keys, AWS credentials, Kubernetes configurations, and Ledger and Trezor wallet data, staging data before exfiltration via chunked HTTP PUT requests. RST Cloud identified rapid C2 infrastructure replacement after initial public disclosure.
Old Wine in the New Bottle: Mirai Variant Targets Multiple IoT Devices
Unit 42 analyzed the Mirai IZ1H9 botnet variant exploiting Tenda, LB-Link, DCN and Zyxel flaws to build DDoS-capable IoT botnets.
Unit 42 observed the Mirai IZ1H9 variant on April 10, 2023, using a shell script downloader lb.sh from 163.123.143.126 to infect exposed Linux servers and networking devices. Campaigns running since November 2021 share infrastructure, near-identical bot functions and the XOR key 0xBAADF00D. The malware exploits CVE-2023-27076 (Tenda G103), CVE-2023-26801 (LB-Link), CVE-2023-26802 (DCN DCBI-Netlog-LAB) and a Zyxel RCE flaw. Compromised devices join a botnet used for DDoS attacks, and the downloader deletes logs and modifies iptables to block SSH, Telnet and HTTP recovery.
New Mirai variant adds stealth capabilities to notorious botnet code
FortiGuard Labs reports new Mirai-derived botnet Evooo1Bot actively exploits unpatched routers and edge devices, adding encrypted C2, stealthy SSH scanning, and proxying.
FortiGuard Labs has identified Evooo1Bot, a previously undocumented Linux malware based on the Mirai botnet code, which has been actively exploiting unpatched vulnerabilities in internet-facing hardware for at least a month. Targeted devices include routers and edge hardware from Alcatel, D-Link, Mitsubishi Electric, Netgear, Tenda and Telesquare, with telemetry showing activity in North and South America, Europe, India, China and Japan. Beyond Mirai's usual DDoS functions, the variant adds encrypted C2 communications, a honeypot-aware SSH scanner, a sniffer for unchanged default credentials, and abuse of the SOCKS protocol to turn compromised devices into persistent proxies for concealing origin and pivoting into internal networks.