THE NEWS
- Recently cybersecurity agencies have detected a new malware called Saposhi which can be used for a ‘Distributed Denial Of Service attack.
- It was detected after Mirai and Reaper malware and it is similar in its intensity to Reaper.
ABOUT THE NEW MALWARE ‘SAPOSHI’
- ‘Saposhi’ is a new malware loom and can be a big threat to the cyberspace.
- It is capable of taking over electronic devices and turning them into bots which can be used for multi-purpose like a DDoS attack.
- It has the capability of taking over millions of device at the rate of 10,000 devices per day.
- It is aimed at DDoS attack by creating a botnet (Network of Bots) which is used to ping a single server at the same time.
- The large botnet attacks to the server can crash the server and denied service to its consumer.
WHAT IS DDoS ATTACK?
- A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is an attack in which multiple compromised computer systems attack a target, such as a server, website.
- The flood of incoming messages, connection requests or malformed packets to the target system forces it to slow down or even crash and shut down.
- DDoS attacks have been carried out by diverse threat actors, ranging from individual criminal hackers to organized crime rings and government agencies.
- There are three types of DDoS attacks namely Network-centric attacks, protocol attacks, and application layer attacks.
FUNCTIONING OF THE MALWARE
- A malware programmed with specific instructions which direct the malware to take over as many devices connected to the internet as possible.
- The malware turns internet-connected devices into ‘bots’ and starts building a botnet depending on its programming.
- Malware like Reaper and Saposhi are capable of identifying weaknesses in devices and exploiting them to turn the devices into bots.
- The creation of botnet by the malware like Saposhi, Reaper causing a server failure by sending simultaneous pings to the targeted server.
- Depending on the size of the botnet, malware can execute multiple DDOS attacks at the same time, or over a period of time.
CONCLUSION
Over the past two decades, the Internet has evolved from something of a novelty to a tool most of us heavily rely on every single day. As the world moving towards digitization and we are more reliable on the internet so Security is no longer a one-machine affair. We need a security suite that helps protect all our devices. There is an abundance of Trojan horses, bots, adware, ransomware, macro viruses, rogueware, spyware, worms and phishing attacks that target Internet users every day. Thus, to deal with the issue Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT), a central government body that deals with the cyber-attacks, had issued an alert about Saposhi and malware like Reaper and other.
