Hackers Used Default/weakest Credentials for IoT Botnet Command and Control Server

Hackers used default Username: root, Password: root for their IoT botnet command and control server.

IoT botnet Owari relies on default/ weak credentials to hack IoT devices uses a MySQL server for command and control that allows attackers to maintain communications with compromised systems.

NewSky Security researcher Ankit Anubhav observed that their honeypot with default credentials attacked by OWARI bot and attempts to download payload form IP 80[.]211[.]232[.]43.

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With their further investigation on attack IP 80[.]211[.]232[.]43, it was identified that default MySQL server port 3306 was open and unexpectedly the server contains the default and weakest credential that every computer user know.

Username: root
Password: root

Ankit Anubhav said the database contains the login credentials of users who control’s the database and the time duration limit for users to utilize the bot for the DDoS attack.

“Some of them can be botnet creators or some can simply be the customers of the botnet, a.k.a black box users, who pay a sum of money to launch DDoS attacks.”

Ankit Anubhav points out that history tables show that bot has been used to launch a DDoS attack against various IP address and the next table is whitelist which contains no Ip address.

“This IP was not a standalone case with its database exposed via weak credentials. The MySQL database of another attack IP 80[.]211[.]45[.]89 was accessible with “root: root” credentials.”

He concluded that both IP’s are offline now, they aware “their IPs will be flagged soon due to the bad network traffic” and “to stay under the radar, they often voluntarily change attack IPs.”