Kimwolf botnet rebuilt to survive takedowns, researchers say
Brief
The developers of a notorious botnet that’s powered mostly by hijacked Android TV boxes and other internet-connected devices have released a new version built to blend attack traffic in with ordinary web browsing and to keep its command channels from being seized by law enforcement, researchers at Palo Alto Networks said in a report published Tuesday .
The company’s Unit 42 threat intelligence group, which tracks the botnet as Kimwolf or Aisuru, said the newest version has been active since February, a month before authorities seized infrastructure powering previous versions of the botnet.
The biggest change, according to the report, is a new flood method built on HTTP/2, the protocol that carries most web traffic today. A flood is the crude heart of a DDoS attack: thousands of infected devices send a target far more requests than it can answer.