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Threat of new malware looms over cyberspace
Context:
Cyber security agencies have detected a new malware called Saposhi
What has happened?
- Saposhi was detected around 15 days ago, and is currently being watched and studied.
- Saposhi is similar in its intensity to another malware called Reaper which had taken over millions of devices at the rate of 10,000 devices per day
How does Saposhi work?
- It takes over electronic devices and turns them into “bots”
- It creates a network of bots called a botnet
- It then uses the botnet to ping a single server at the same time.
- As the numbers of pings are far beyond the server’s capacity, the server crashes and denies service to its consumers.
- After this, it can be used for any purpose, including a Distributed Denial of Service attack which, with enough firepower, can cripple entire industries.
Instances of DDoS Attacks:
- In July 2016, small and medium internet service providers in Maharashtra fell prey to a DDoS attack, which caused disruption in the services of several Internet Service Providers (ISP) in the State.
- Another malware, Mirai, using a botnet of 5 lakh devices, had caused the servers of Dyn, a leading domain name service provider, to crash, affecting services of popular websites like Twitter, Netflix and Reddit