Security News > 2020 > March > February sees huge jump in exploits designed to spread Mirai botnet
The Mirai botnet is known for targeting Internet of Things devices and conducting massive DDoS attacks, as described by cyberthreat researcher Check Point Research.
A look at the top cyber threats for February by Check Point Research highlights the latest developments in popular malware strains and vulnerabilities.
In its Global Threat Index for February 2020, Check Point discovered a significant increase in malware designed to exploit certain vulnerabilities to spread the Mirai botnet.
Infamous for a huge cyberattack in 2016 that took down several major websites, Mirai has a nasty habit of infecting Internet of Things devices and launching large Distributed denial of service attacks.
In second place was a vulnerability called OpenSSL TLS DTLS Heartbeat Information Disclosure though which an attacker can access the contents in memory of an affected client or server PC. "As we saw in January, the most impactful threats and exploits during February were versatile malware such as XMRig and Emotet," Maya Horowitz, director or Threat Intelligence & Research for Products at Check Point, said in a press release.