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Youngsters give enterprises a mighty scare with their custom IoT botnet

Youngsters give enterprises a mighty scare with their custom IoT botnet
  • Makers of the infamous Kepler IoT botnet said that they were simply having fun when building the botnet.
  • They were experimenting with random exploits to check which one of the security holes attracted more bots.

An IoT botnet had attracted a lot of attention last month. Turns out, it was just a fun project created by two youngsters in their teenage years. Kepler botnet, which was capable of infecting signage TVs and presentation systems, was merely deployed to test random vulnerabilities and exploits without any intention of compromising corporate networks.

Worth noting

  • The bot used a total of 43 exploits as told by Nipsu, one of the creators of Kepler. It was earlier reported to be using 27 exploits.
  • The duo also told that they did not monitor the botnet's activity with respect to the number of devices affected.
  • As of now, the duo told ZDNet they did not have any plans to sell Kepler to cybercriminals or rent it for DDoS attacks.

Nothing but a trend

ZDNet, which covered Kepler’s earlier developments, opines that the botnet was simply a trend set by amateurs getting into cybersecurity.

“These revelations aren't just an isolated edge case in the IoT botnet scene. Many botnet authors are just kids taking their first steps in the world of programming and cybersecurity, playing around with exploits, before realizing the legal problem they could be in, and moving on to other careers --or getting arrested,” ZDNet reported.

On the other hand, IoT botnets such as Torii are continuously bringing new exploits into the picture and are conducting them on a wide scale. IoT botnets have become the go-to method to disrupt devices spread across multiple networks. Kepler might just be an exception.

Cyware Publisher

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Cyware