Mirai Botnet Upgraded

Recently published research shows that the infamous Mirai botnet has been upgraded to attack to new classes of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, those been smart signage TVs and wireless presentation systems. This at first glance does not appear to be a major revelation, what is worrying is how the authors of Mirai appear to have spent a lot of time and effort into these upgrades. The upgrades center around the inclusion of new exploits which have been added to older versions of the botnet. With the rise of IoT devices so did the rise of botnets, a malware type which can be defined as a collection of internet-connected devices, which may include PCs, servers, mobile devices, and importantly for Mirai’s case internet of things devices that are infected and controlled by the malware. This creates a network which can be used by a malicious actor to send email spam, engage in click fraud campaigns, and generate malici...

Search.fastpackagetracker.co Redirect

The Internet is packed with unreliable, fake search engines. Search.fastpackagetracker.co is just one of them many. Quite often they are promoted using various potentially unwanted applications (PUAs). In this case it is promoted through a browser hijacker called Fast Package Tracker (it is also used to promote another fake search engine, search.hfasttrackerpackage.net). This app is presented as a tool for tracking packages directly from peoples browsers. It might look like a useful tool, however, usually people install apps of this type unwillingly/unintentionally. Another problem is that, once installed, browser hijackers change browser's settings and gather data about their users. Typically, these apps are capable of hijacking browsers like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. When installed, Fast Package Tracker appoints search.fastpackagetracker.co as a homepage, default search engi...