- A vulnerability in mitel -phones is abused again
- Hackers use the error to implement a variant of mirai and run DDOS -attack
- The variant is called Aquabot and comes with a few unique features
Akamai security researchers have caught a new variant of the notorious Mirai Botnet, targeting business telephone units built by Mitel.
Mitel provides business communication solutions, including VOIP, Unified Communications and Contact Center Services, but according to Akamai, the devices – namely Mitel 6800, 6900 and 6900W series of SIP Desk phones along with the 6970 conference running on firmware R6 .4.0.HF1 (R6. 4.0.136) -er vulnerable to a command injection error traced as CVE-2024-41710.
This is a middle-off error (6.8/10) that allows an attacker to perform arbitrary commands within the framework of the system.
Reporting Counter -attack
A threat actor took advantage of this mistake to implement Aquabotv3, a new variant of Mirai, arguably the most destructive botnet out there. Aquabot allows its operators to run distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks.
This version also comes with a unique and uncommon feature that probably serves to help threat actors to track the health of the botnet. When a victim detects malware on its device and tries to remove it, Aquabot will respond and send the information about the trial back to his command and control (C2) server.
The best way to defend against Aquabot and other Mirai variants is to keep the final points updated. Mitel patched this particular vulnerability in July 2024, so if you use these phones in your organization, be sure to use the patch to mitigate any risks.
Mirai and its variants continue to destroy cyberspace. Over the past 30 days alone, there have been several news reports about various Mirai variants that were discovered in nature. For example, Junipers from Junipers recently warned of a Mirai variant at the end of December 2024, and in early January 2025 Chinese scientists discovered a variant of Mirai with an offensive name that targeted industrial routers.
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