Your Linux-based home router could succumb to a new Telnet worm, Remaiten

Building botnets made up of routers, modems, wireless access points and other networking devices doesn't require sophisticated exploits. Remaiten, a new worm that infects embedded systems, spreads by taking advantage of weak Telnet passwords.

Remaiten is the latest incarnation of distributed denial-of-service Linux bots designed for embedded architectures. Its authors actually call it KTN-Remastered, where KTN most likely stands for a known Linux bot called Kaiten.

When scanning for new victims, Remaiten tries to connect to random IP addresses on port 23 (Telnet) and if the connection is successful, it attempts to authenticate using username and password combinations from a list of commonly used credentials, researchers from ESET said in a blog post.

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