Router Botnet Uncovered

The team behind DroneBL, which monitors abusable IPs, claims to have uncovered a botnet comprised of hacked consumer-grade routers.

The group claims the botnet has been targeting DroneBL's servers in a denial-of-service campaign for several weeks and is the first of its kind. It uses brute-force password cracking attempts to hijack any Linux mipsel routing device that uses insecure or common username and password pairs.

"This is the first known botnet based on exploiting consumer network devices, such as home routers and cable/dsl modems," the DroneBL team wrote in a post on their Website. "Action must be taken immediately to stop this worm before it grows much larger."

DroneBL claims many devices are vulnerable to the botnet, which is spreading automatically using compromised hosts to propagate. The size of the botnet, dubbed "psyb0t," is currently unknown.