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A mysterious piece of malware has infected tens of thousands of devices across the world, but its operator hasn’t used them for any malicious purposes.
The bot, dubbed by Symantec “Linux.Wifatch,” was first spotted in November 2014 when an independent researcher noticed some interesting processes on his home router. Symantec has been monitoring the threat since March 2015 and the security firm has been trying to solve the mystery of Wifatch ever since.
Symantec researchers have avoided calling Wifatch a piece of malware because it doesn’t actually do anything malicious. Instead, it appears to be the work of what experts call an “Internet of Things (IoT) vigilante” who wants to protect routers and other IoT devices from malicious actors.
The bot, dubbed by Symantec “Linux.Wifatch,” was first spotted in November 2014 when an independent researcher noticed some interesting processes on his home router. Symantec has been monitoring the threat since March 2015 and the security firm has been trying to solve the mystery of Wifatch ever since.
Symantec researchers have avoided calling Wifatch a piece of malware because it doesn’t actually do anything malicious. Instead, it appears to be the work of what experts call an “Internet of Things (IoT) vigilante” who wants to protect routers and other IoT devices from malicious actors.