In February, hardware maker Zyxel fixed a zero-day vulnerability in its routers and VPN firewall products after KrebsOnSecurity told the company the flaw was being abused by attackers to break into devices. This week, security researchers said they spotted that same vulnerability being exploited by a new variant of Mirai, a malware strain that targets vulnerable Internet of Things (IoT) devices for use in large-scale attacks and as proxies for other cybercrime activity.
Security experts at Palo Alto Networks said Thursday their sensors detected the new Mirai variant — dubbed Mukashi — on Mar. 12. The new Mirai strain targets CVE-2020-9054, a critical flaw that exists in many VPN firewalls and network attached storage (NAS) devices made by Taiwanese vendor Zyxel Communication Corp., which boasts some 100 million devices deployed worldwide.