Novel stealthy NKAbuse malware detailed

BleepingComputer reports that Mexico-, Vietnam-, and Colombia-based Linux systems have been primarily impacted by the new stealthy NKAbuse multi-platform malware, which is the first-ever backdoor exploiting the New Kind of Network data exchange technology. Attacks with NKAbuse, which could also compromise systems on the ARM, MIPS, and 386 architectures, leverage the NKN public blockchain protocol to facilitate obfuscated distributed denial-of-service attacks through payload commands from the command-and-control server, a Kaspersky report showed. "All these payloads historically have been used by botnets, so, when combined with the NKN as the communication protocol, the malware can asynchronously wait for the master to launch a combined attack," said Kaspersky researchers, who also noted the malware's remote access trojan capabilities. Such findings indicate the formidable threat and the significant mitigation challenge posed by the NKAbuse malware due to its elevated sophistication, versatility, and adaptability not common among DDoS botnets.