In June 2022, FortiGuard Labs encountered IoT malware samples with SSH-related strings, something not often seen in other IoT threat campaigns. What piqued our interest more was the size of the code referencing these strings in relation to the code used for DDoS attacks, which usually comprises most of the code in other variants.

Symbiote is a new Linux malware we discovered that acts in a parasitic nature, infecting other running processes to inflict damage on machines.

The activity we have observed has been attributed to a threat group that Microsoft tracks as DEV-0537, also known as LAPSUS$. DEV-0537 is known for using a pure extortion and destruction model without deploying ransomware payloads.

In June 2022, FortiGuard Labs encountered IoT malware samples with SSH-related strings, something not often seen in other IoT threat campaigns. What piqued our interest more was the size of the code referencing these strings in relation to the code used for DDoS attacks, which usually comprises most of the code in other variants.

Symbiote is a new Linux malware we discovered that acts in a parasitic nature, infecting other running processes to inflict damage on machines.

The activity we have observed has been attributed to a threat group that Microsoft tracks as DEV-0537, also known as LAPSUS$. DEV-0537 is known for using a pure extortion and destruction model without deploying ransomware payloads.