Murdoc Botnet Exploiting AVTECH Cameras & Huawei Routers to Gain Complete Control

Researchers have identified an active malware campaign involving a Mirai botnet variant, dubbed Murdoc, which has been targeting AVTECH cameras and Huawei HG532 routers since at least July 2024.

Mass Campaign Leveraging Two Key Vulnerabilities

The campaign exploits two known vulnerabilities:

• CVE-2024-7029: An unpatchable command injection vulnerability affecting end-of-life AVTECH IP cameras and also exploited by the Corona Mirai variant last year allows remote code execution (RCE) and malware deployment on compromised devices.
• CVE-2017-17215: An arbitrary command execution flaw in Huawei HG532 routers that has been frequently targeted in prior campaigns.

These vulnerabilities enable attackers to co-opt vulnerable devices into a Mirai-based botnet infrastructure.

Current Observations and Infection Data

Using scans from Censys, researchers have noted 221 Murdoc-infected hosts, predominantly located in Indonesia, the United States, and Taiwan, as of January 22, 2025.

While some sources report over 1,300 infections, this count likely includes false positives such as misconfigured devices or pseudoservices behaving abnormally across open ports.

Among the infected hosts, 93 appear to function as Mirai command-and-control (C2) servers, actively targeting other vulnerable devices to propagate the malware further.

For detection, researchers have provided Censys search queries:

• Murdoc-infected hosts: services.http.response.body:"murdoc_botnet"
• Mirai C2s: services.http.response.body:"murdoc_botnet" and services.http.response.body:"$(echo -ne"

GreyNoise sensors have also documented aggressive exploit activity for both vulnerabilities.

Specifically, they have observed 17 distinct malicious IPs exploiting CVE-2024-7029 (targeting AVTECH cameras) and a staggering 37,796 IPs attempting to exploit CVE-2017-17215 (targeting Huawei HG532 routers).

Malicious activity for the Huawei flaw peaked on January 16, 2025, according to GreyNoise data.

Despite being end-of-life and discontinued, over 36,182 AVTECH cameras remain exposed on the internet, many potentially vulnerable to CVE-2024-7029.

These devices no longer receive security updates and should not be publicly accessible.

Organizations and individuals are urged to take immediate action to mitigate this threat.

Recommended steps include isolating such devices from external networks or replacing them with hardware that is actively supported and updated.

Failure to secure these devices leaves networks highly susceptible to exploitation in these increasingly sophisticated botnet campaigns.