Security News > 2022 > September > Multi-platform Chaos malware threatens to live up to its name
Chaos, new multipurpose malware written in the Go programming language, is spreading across the world.
The prevalence of malware written in Go has increased dramatically in recent years due to the language's flexibility, low antivirus detection rates and difficulty to reverse-engineer, Black Lotus Labs analysts noted.
The Chaos malware is potent because it works across a variety of architectures, targets devices and systems that are not routinely monitored as part of an enterprise security model, and propagates through known vulnerabilities and SSH keys that are either stolen or obtained through brute force.
Beginning in June, analysts discovered several distinct Chaos clusters that were written in Chinese.
"The Chaos malware targets known vulnerabilities," Dehus added, "We recommend network administrators practice rigorous patch management, and use the IoCs outlined in our report to monitor for infection or connections to suspicious infrastructure. Consumers and remote workers should enable automatic software updates, and regularly update passwords and reboot hardware."
Black Lotus Labs believes this malware is not related to the Chaos ransomware builder discovered in 2021; rather, the overlapping code and functions suggest it is likely the evolution of Kaiji, a DDoS malware discovered in 2020.