Asus routers hijacked to power dangerous cybercrime proxy network - here's what we know

• New KadNap malware infects 14,000+ routers
• Botnet uses custom Kademlia DHT protocol for resilience
• Proxy network Doppelgänger already active in the wild

A new malware strain has been found assimilating Asus routers into a botnet for malicious proxy traffic.

Security researchers Black Lotus spotted the new network, named KadNap, and warned that in less than a year it has managed to infect more than 14,000 devices, mostly made by Asus.

The attackers don’t seem to be targeting that manufacturer specifically, so it may be the case these products are relatively easy to compromise, or there are plenty of vulnerable devices out there, compared to competing endpoints. The majority of the victims (60%) are located in the US. The remaining 40% are split between Taiwan, Hong Kong, Russia, the UK, Australia, Brazil, France, Italy, and Spain.

EDR killer

What makes this botnet unique is the use of the Kademlia Distributed Hash Table (DHT) protocol, a P2P network protocol used to store and find data across a decentralized network.

Instead of relying on a central server, millions of computers cooperate to locate files and information, making it quite resilient against possible law enforcement disruption efforts.

"KadNap employs a custom version of the Kademlia Distributed Hash Table (DHT) protocol, which is used to conceal the IP address of their infrastructure within a peer-to-peer system to evade traditional network monitoring," Black Lotus said in its report.

“The innovative use of the DHT protocol allows the malware to establish robust communication channels that are difficult to disrupt, by hiding in the noise of legitimate peer-to-peer traffic," they added.

KatNap is apparently used to build a proxy network called Doppelgänger which seems to be a rebrand of a previous network called Faceless. This one, the researchers say, was built using TheMoon malware.

The botnet is past the construction stage, since it is apparently already being used in the wild.

Via The Hacker News

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