Security researchers have discovered malware that could be assembling a botnet army composed of five million compromised Android devices. Researchers from cybersecurity firm Check Point said that the RottenSys malware was targeted at Android users through an app disguised as a WiFi service. It was originally used as malware to serve fraudulent ads on users’ displays. Sean Newman, Director at Corero Network security commented below.
Sean Newman, Director at Corero Network Security:
“Mobile malware is nothing new, so it was only matter of time before reports of mobile devices being compromised, en masse, and used for nefarious purposes on a potentially much larger scale, was to be expected. Following on from the significant damage caused by DDoS attacks over the past two years by botnets consisting of up to several hundred thousand relatively low performance IoT devices, the prospect of millions of significantly more powerful smartphones launching attacks is not to be taken lightly.
“Service providers should be looking at real-time DDoS protection at the core of their mobile networks to protect all their users and services. As they migrate to higher-bandwidth 5G mobile services, this issue will only become more acute and additional segmentation, from a security and DDoS perspective, should be considered, to avoid some parts of their networks attacking others.”
