New variant of Mirai malware targeting IoT devices in Vietnam

Analyzing a new variant of Mirai malware, Bkav discovers hacker is targeting Vietnam. Mirai is a malware that has attacked a series of IoT devices around the world, infecting through searching for default passwords set by manufacturers. Inside this new variant, the list of passwords used by the malware includes the default account information one network operator in Vietnam.

The booming of IoT has made security on devices such as Wi-Fi routers, IP cameras and so on become a hot topic in recent times. Bkav research finding in 2016 also showed that more than 5.6 million routers around the world are vulnerable, especially the number in Vietnam was 300 thousands, equivalent to 300 thousand networks left unclosed. After successful hacking and getting control of IoT devices, hackers can mobilize these devices to form botnets in DDoS attacks, or take full control of users’ access to the network, start MitM, Phishing attacks to steal bank accounts, social network accounts, email and so on.

Mr. Ngo Tuan Anh, Vice President of Internet Security of Bkav said: "In order to avoid the risk of unauthorized access, the user needs to check and change the administrative password of the IoT devices and turn off the feature that allows device access from the Internet if he does not need to use such feature. The service and device providers need to request users to change the default password after installing the devices.”

15 million computers are infected with virus in 3rd quarter of 2017, USB is the main cause

According to Bkav statistics, the number of computers infected with virus in Vietnam in 3rd quarter of 2017 is still very high, up to 15 millions. In particular, the main route of infection is via USB, accounting for more than 50%.

The explanation for USB still being the main infecting source of virus, Bkav expert says that USB is a popular mean of backing up and exchanging data between computers; however, the awareness of safe use of USB has not improved much. Also according to Bkav statistics in 2016, up to 83% of USB were infected by the virus in the year.

To limit the spread of the virus through USB as well as to protect data, individual users need to equip regular antivirus software to scan USB before using, restricting the use of USB on strange machines. For enterprises and agencies, there should be a comprehensive security policy control solution, which controls and assigns the use of USB according to the needs and importance of each machine.