During the first half of 2018, malware designed specifically for Internet of Things (IoT) devices grew three-fold with over 120,000 modifications of malware according to new research from Kaspersky Lab.
The security firm’s IoT report revealed that the growth of malware families for smart devices is snowballing and part of a dangerous trend that could leave consumer devices vulnerable to illegal activity including cryptocurrency mining, DDoS attacks or being used in large scale attacks by becoming part of a botnet.
Kaspersky Lab is well aware of these threats and the company has set up its own decoy devices called honeypots to lure cybercriminals and analyse their activities online.
According to the statistics, the most popular method of spreading IoT malware is still brute forcing passwords where hackers repetitively try various password combinations before eventually gaining access to a device. Brute forcing was used in 93 per cent of attacks while well-known exploits were used in the remaining cases.
Kaspersky Lab’s honeypots were attacked most often by routers with 60 per cent of attacks coming from them. The remaining attacks were carried out by a variety of devices including DVRs and printers. Surprisingly, 33 attacks were carried out by connected washing machines.
Why target IoT devices
Cybercriminals may have different reasons for exploiting IoT devices but the most popular reason was to create botnets which would be used to facilitate DDoS attacks. Some of the malware modifications discovered by Kaspersky Lab were even tailored to disable competing malware.
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