New Windows Malware Campaign Aims to Make PCs Part of a Botnet Army

Malware attacks are becoming more sophisticated and complex as time goes by, and now, there’s a new threat with an infinitely more sinister goal. A recently discovered malware campaign apparently aims to take control of a Windows device after infecting it. Once this is done, the device will apparently be added to a botnet army. It’s like a person becoming a zombie and falling under an evil necromancer’s spell.

Called Mylobot by the researchers at Deep Instinct who discovered the threat, this is reportedly not just any malware campaign. The complexity and sophistication involved in the matter show that the creators went to great lengths to achieve their goals. The malware apparently also employs some truly advanced evasion methods.

“Lately, we have noticed a highly complicated botnet (number of internet-connected devices, where the owner can control them using command and control servers), which was detected and prevented in one of our client’s live environment and devices – by our deep learning cybersecurity solution. This tool presents three different layers of evasion techniques, including usage of command and control servers to download the final payload. the combination and complexity of these techniques were never seen in the wild before,” the report reads.

The researchers also stressed that botnets can be made to do practically anything their creators want them to. They can launch DDoS attacks, for example, or be used to steal data. Incidents where ransomware was installed are also not unheard of.

One of the most sinister aspects of this particular threat is how it apparently employs delayed attacks, ZDNet notes. It basically waits for two weeks after infecting a computer before making internal changes to its documents and software. One of the first things that it will do is disable Windows Defender and block all updates.

The malware campaign will even destroy other security threats apart from itself to remain undetected. While the goal and the people behind this latest threat are still unknown, it’s clear that this is not a job by amateurs.