‘Reaper’ Botnet: It’s Already Infected Over a Million Devices

heck Point Research a security group asserts there is one botnet which is evolving and growing very fast with the ability to sometime in future collapse the Internet. Understandably, millions of IoTs (Internet of Things) referring to Internet-connected appliances make up this botnet which has been compared with the hitherto notorious Mirai botnet. Interestingly, this new botnet is gearing towards making Mirai smaller both in terms of size and pace.

The new botnet is dubbed Reaper that undermines the severity of other attacks. While Mirai compromised poorly protected computers running on default passwords and thus managed its expansion, Reaper compromises via hack and infiltration into innumerable devices worldwide.

According to Manager Maya Horowitz of threat intelligence team at Check Point, the Reaper bot has contaminated millions of devices. With Reaper we
recall the Mirai malware that amassed more than 5 lakhs internet-connected bots in 2016, as a few estimates show. Subsequently, it started executing one gigantic DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) assault which halted people's access to the Internet all over USA. In.pcmag.com posted this on the Web dated October 21, 2017.

o far, researchers say the botnet is in its early "recruitment" and infection stage, focusing on amassing its army of zombie slave devices. No one knows what it might be used for. And it's possible it could fizzle out without being used for anything at all, as some previous botnets have.

They also caution that the botnet has already lost one of its key advantages: staying covert,

"Their methods, servers and resources are exposed and this gives the world a fighting chance to stop the threat before it can be used for attacks," Pascal Geenens, an expert with cybersecurity firm Radware wrote NBC News in an email.

And while its gathering force is a cause for concern, once it gets used for a specific purpose it shouldn't take more than a few hours to shut down its rogue traffic, experts say.