Mirai Threat: Here's Why Securing the Connected Future Matters

Mirai malware scans for Internet of Things (IoT) devices that are still using their default passwords and then enslaves those devices into a botnet, which is then used to launch DDoS attacks.

- Sidharth Shekhar

The recent reports involving the Mirai malware is a serious cause of concern for the Internet of Things ecosystem. Mirai can easily takeover insecure cameras, DVR's, and routers, which

are widely available all around the world. Mirai came into limelight when it took down the blog of Brian Krebs - an American journalist and investigative reporter in September following a record 620 Gpbs attack.

Following this incident, the source code for Mirai was leaked online at the end of September and since then; the code has surfaced many times resulting in the emergence of several large Mirai-based attacks. In October, another such attack brought down much of America’s internet which many experts believe to be the largest of its kind in history. The victim was Dyn, a company that controls much of the internet’s domain name system (DNS) infrastructure. This attack brought down sites like Twitter, the Guardian, Netflix, Reddit, CNN and many others in Europe and the US.