September 10, 2018 - Dubai, UAE: Unit 42 has uncovered new variants of the well-known IoT botnets Mirai and Gafgyt. These are the IoT botnets associated with unprecedented Distributed Denial of Service attacks in November 2016 and since.

 

These variants are notable for two reasons:

 

• The new Mirai version targets the same Apache Struts vulnerability associated with the Equifax data breach in 2017.

• The new Gafgyt version targets a newly disclosed vulnerability affecting older, unsupported versions of SonicWall’s Global Management System (GMS).

 

These developments suggest these IOT botnets are increasingly targeting enterprise devices with outdated versions.

 

All organizations should ensure they keep not only their systems up-to-date and patched, but also their IoT devices. For Palo Alto Networks customers, WidlFire detects all related samples with malicious verdicts. Additional protections are noted in the conclusion below.

 

Research:

On September 7, 2018, Unit 42 found samples of a Mirai variant that incorporates exploits targeting 16 separate vulnerabilities. While the use of multiple exploits within a single sample of Mirai has been observed in the past, this is the first known instance of Mirai targeting a vulnerability in Apache Struts.

 

In addition, Unit 42 found the domain that is currently hosting these Mirai samples previously resolved to a different IP address during the month of August. During that time this IP was intermittently hosting samples of Gafgyt that incorporated an exploit against CVE-2018-9866 a SonicWall vulnerability affecting older versions of SonicWall Global Management System (GMS). SonciWall has been notified of this development.

 

The incorporation of exploits targeting Apache Struts and SonicWall by these IoT/Linux botnets could indicate a larger movement from consumer device targets to enterprise targets.