Malicious IoT botnet traffic targeting telecoms networks increases 5x over 2022: Nokia

NEW DELHI: The Internet of Things (IoT) botnet Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) traffic, originating from insecure IoT devices has grown five-fold in 2023 over the past year, with the aim of disrupting telecom network services for “millions of users”, Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia’s Threat Intelligence Service has found.

It said in a statement Wednesday that the IoT botnet DDoS traffic has increased following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and stemming from the growing increase in profit-driven hacking collectives operated by cybercriminals.

The number of IoT devices (bots) engaged in botnet-driven DDoS attacks rose from around 200,000 a year ago to approximately 1 million devices, generating more than 40% of all DDoS traffic today, according to the report.