Bitdefender warns India of Imminent Botnet Attack

Image: Intercontinental Attacks of Botnets

The emerging botnet, that uses custom-built peer-to-peer communication to exploit victims, was spotted by security researchers at Bitdefender Labs on January 10 before it disappeared for a few days. It returned 10 days later on January 20 in a new and significantly improved form, the researchers said. 

“A malicious cyber threat in the shape of HNS botnet now hovers above the ginormous cyber network of India. While the world still healing from the scars of ransomware cyber-attack, we cannot afford to conjure any other of such attack with such tiny or no information – additionally more threatening and effective,” Zakir Hussain, Director, BD soft, Country Partner of Bitdefender.

The botnet now controls 32,312 Internet of Things (IoT) devices globally and seems to undergo massive development as new samples compiled for a variety of architectures have been added as payloads. “This menace being hardly traceable, can hit India a severe blow.

However, the researchers noted that like most IoT botnets, HNS cannot establish persistence on infected devices. With a simple device reboot, the malware can be automatically removed from the compromised device.