• Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
MUST READ

Smart Buses flaws expose vehicles to tracking, control, and spying

 | 

MedusaLocker ransomware group is looking for pentesters

 | 

Google confirms Salesforce CRM breach, faces extortion threat

 | 

SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 57

 | 

Security Affairs newsletter Round 536 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

 | 

Embargo Ransomware nets $34.2M in crypto since April 2024

 | 

Germany limits police spyware use to serious crimes

 | 

Phishing attacks exploit WinRAR flaw CVE-2025-8088 to install RomCom

 | 

French firm Bouygues Telecom suffered a data breach impacting 6.4M customers

 | 

Columbia University data breach impacted 868,969 people

 | 

SonicWall dismisses zero-day fears after Ransomware probe

 | 

Air France and KLM disclosed data breaches following the hack of a third-party platform

 | 

CISA, Microsoft warn of critical Exchange hybrid flaw CVE-2025-53786

 | 

Microsoft unveils Project Ire: AI that autonomously detects malware

 | 

CERT-UA warns of UAC-0099 phishing attacks targeting Ukraine’s defense sector

 | 

Over 100 Dell models exposed to critical ControlVault3 firmware bugs

 | 

How CTEM Boosts Visibility and Shrinks Attack Surfaces in Hybrid and Cloud Environments

 | 

WhatsApp cracks down on 6.8M scam accounts in global takedown

 | 

Trend Micro fixes two actively exploited Apex One RCE flaws

 | 

U.S. CISA adds D-Link cameras and Network Video Recorder flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog

 | 
  • Home
  • Cyber Crime
  • Cyber warfare
  • APT
  • Data Breach
  • Deep Web
  • Digital ID
  • Hacking
  • Hacktivism
  • Intelligence
  • Internet of Things
  • Laws and regulations
  • Malware
  • Mobile
  • Reports
  • Security
  • Social Networks
  • Terrorism
  • ICS-SCADA
  • POLICIES
  • Contact me
  • Home
  • Breaking News
  • Cyber Crime
  • Mukashi, the new Mirai variant that targets Zyxel NAS

Mukashi, the new Mirai variant that targets Zyxel NAS

Pierluigi Paganini March 21, 2020

A new variant of the infamous Mirai malware, tracked as Mukashi, targets Zyxel network-attached storage (NAS) devices exploiting recently patched CVE-2020-9054 issue.

Security experts have discovered a new variant of the infamous Mirai malware, tracked as Mukashi, was employed in attacks against network-attached storage (NAS) devices manufactured by Zyxel.

According to Palo Alto researchers, threat actors exploited the recently patched CVE-2020-9054 vulnerability in Zyxel NAS.

“As soon as the proof-of-concept (PoC) for CVE-2020-9054 was made publicly available last month, this vulnerability was promptly abused to infect vulnerable versions of Zyxel network-attached storage (NAS) devices with a new Mirai variant – Mukashi.” reads the analysis published by Palo Alto Network.

“Mukashi brute forces the logins using different combinations of default credentials, while informing its command and control (C2) server of the successful login attempts. Multiple, if not all, Zyxel NAS products running firmware versions up to 5.21 are vulnerable to this pre-authentication command injection vulnerability. The vendor advisory is also available.“

You can test to see if a Zyxel NAS device is vulnerable here.”

In February, Zyxel released security patches to address the CVE-2020-9054 critical remote code execution vulnerability that affects several NAS devices. The flaw can be exploited by an unauthenticated attacker, it resides in the weblogin.cgi CGI executable that doesn’t correctly sanitize the username parameter passed to it. 

An attacker could include certain characters in the username passed the executable to trigger the vulnerability and carry out command injection with the privileges of the webserver.

Zyxel NAS

“Multiple ZyXEL network-attached storage (NAS) devices contain a pre-authentication command injection vulnerability, which may allow a remote, unauthenticated attacker to execute arbitrary code on a vulnerable device.” reads the advisory published by CERT/CC.

“ZyXEL NAS devices achieve authentication by using the weblogin.cgi CGI executable. This program fails to properly sanitize the username parameter that is passed to it. If the username parameter contains certain characters, it can allow command injection with the privileges of the web server that runs on the ZyXEL device.”

Experts explained that ZyXEL NAS devices include a setuid utility that can be used to run any command with root privileges.

CERT/CC warned of the availability online of working exploit code for this issue, for this reason, they have created a PoC exploit that power down affected ZyXEL devices.

Palo Alto Networks first spotted the Mukashi’s activity on March 12, when the threat actor attempted to download a shell script to the tmp directory, execute the downloaded script, and remove the evidence on a vulnerable device.

“Upon execution, the zi script downloads different architectures of Mirai bot, runs the downloaded binaries, and removes the binaries. All these binaries were not available on VirusTotal at the time of discovery — 4 out of 8 are in VirusTotal at the time of writing.” continues the analysis.

Once it has infected a device, the Mukashi bot performs brute-force attacks in the attempt to compromise other IoT devices on the network and contacts the C&C server if a login attempt has been successful.

Mukashi searches open TCP port 23 and uses combinations of default credentials to access other systems. The bot supports various commands, like Mirai, such as launching DDoS attacks.

“Mukashi is a bot that scans the TCP port 23 of random hosts, brute forces the logins using different combinations of default credentials, and reports the successful login attempt to its C2 server. Like other Mirai variants, Mukashi is also capable of receiving C2 commands and launching DDoS attacks.”

“When it’s executed, Mukashi prints the message “Protecting your device from further infections.” to the console. The malware then proceeds to change its process name to dvrhelper, suggesting Mukashi may inherit certain traits from its predecessor.” concludes the analysis.

“Prior to carrying out its intended operation, Mukashi binds to the TCP port 23448 in order to ensure only a single instance is running on the infected system.”

[adrotate banner=”9″] [adrotate banner=”12″]

Pierluigi Paganini

(SecurityAffairs – Mirai botnet, Mukashi)

[adrotate banner=”5″]

[adrotate banner=”13″]


facebook linkedin twitter

bot botnet Hacking information security news it security it security news Mirai Mukashi NAS Pierluigi Paganini Security News

you might also like

Pierluigi Paganini August 11, 2025
Smart Buses flaws expose vehicles to tracking, control, and spying
Read more
Pierluigi Paganini August 11, 2025
MedusaLocker ransomware group is looking for pentesters
Read more

leave a comment

newsletter

Subscribe to my email list and stay
up-to-date!

    recent articles

    Smart Buses flaws expose vehicles to tracking, control, and spying

    Hacking / August 11, 2025

    MedusaLocker ransomware group is looking for pentesters

    Hacking / August 11, 2025

    Google confirms Salesforce CRM breach, faces extortion threat

    Data Breach / August 10, 2025

    SECURITY AFFAIRS MALWARE NEWSLETTER ROUND 57

    Breaking News / August 10, 2025

    Security Affairs newsletter Round 536 by Pierluigi Paganini – INTERNATIONAL EDITION

    Breaking News / August 10, 2025

    To contact me write an email to:

    Pierluigi Paganini :
    pierluigi.paganini@securityaffairs.co

    LEARN MORE

    QUICK LINKS

    • Home
    • Cyber Crime
    • Cyber warfare
    • APT
    • Data Breach
    • Deep Web
    • Digital ID
    • Hacking
    • Hacktivism
    • Intelligence
    • Internet of Things
    • Laws and regulations
    • Malware
    • Mobile
    • Reports
    • Security
    • Social Networks
    • Terrorism
    • ICS-SCADA
    • POLICIES
    • Contact me

    Copyright@securityaffairs 2024

    We use cookies on our website to give you the most relevant experience by remembering your preferences and repeat visits. By clicking “Accept All”, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. However, you may visit "Cookie Settings" to provide a controlled consent.
    Cookie SettingsAccept All
    Manage consent

    Privacy Overview

    This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities...
    Necessary
    Always Enabled
    Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
    Non-necessary
    Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
    SAVE & ACCEPT