A real threat to IoT devices: the Mirai malware

On the eve of 20th September, the source code of the Mirai botnet^[1] responsible for one of the biggest known cyber-attacks originating and targeting IoT (Internet of Things) devices was released. IoT devices are interconnecting physical devices such as webcams, thermostats, sensors, and other devices that collect and exchange data and can be controlled by end-users over a network. The Mirai botnet has recently been used to deploy a DDoS (Distributed denial-of-service) attack generating 620 Gbps of traffic against the website of the famous American journalist Brian Krebs.   It is particularly noticeable that despite the huge amount of generated traffic, the attack did not rely on any amplifier, but rather used the IoT devices as entry points for these attacks. According to forecasts^[2], there will be as many as 6.4 billion IoT devices connected to the internet in 2016, and this number is expected to reach 20.7 billion by 2020. These staggering figures combined with the release of the botnet source code, poses a critical threat for the existing IoT infrastructure in the industry, as well as for end-users.   As a part of the H2020 framework, the biotope project^[3] aims to provide an ecosystem for such smart devices which will also address the security aspect of such devices. itrust consulting plays a leading role in developing the security toolkit that will protect such smart devices against potential cyber-attacks. Such toolkit will seamlessly integrate within the framework of the biotope project providing a complete and secure System-of-System platform for IoT devices.