TVT DVRs become prime target for Mirai botnet

• GreyNoise says scannings for vulnerable TVT DVRs are spiking
• More than 2,500 unique IP addresses were hunting at one point
• A 2024 vulnerability allows threat actors to run admin commands on the device

Operators of the Mirai botnet are actively hunting for vulnerable TVT DVRs to assimilate them into the nefarious network, cybersecurity researchers GreyNoise have revealed after observing a spike in exploitation attempts.

In May 2024, security researchers from SSD Secure Disclosure reported on a vulnerability affecting NVMS9000 DVRs built by the Shenzhen-based TVT Digital Technology manufacturer. The vulnerability was described as an authentication bypass, allowing threat actors to run admin commands on the device unabated.

All versions prior to 1.3.4 were said to be affected, but a patch was released and versions 1.3.4 and newer were no longer vulnerable.

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"No malicious files hosted"

Users who don’t keep track of updates and don’t patch their systems on time are now at risk. GreyNoise said that on April 3 the attack peaked, with more than 2,500 unique IP addresses scanning for vulnerable endpoints.

We don’t know how many of these DVRs there are or how big the attack surface might be.

The researchers said that the malware being deployed on the DVRs is tied to Mirai, one of the most infamous botnets in cybersecurity history.

Mirai usually targets smart devices, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and internet-connected hardware, and is used to run disruptive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

GreyNoise said that in the past 30 days it logged 6,600 unique IP addresses associated with this activity. All of the addresses were confirmed to be malicious. They mostly came from Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, targeting devices in the US, UK, and Germany.

Mirai operators have been quite active already this year. In mid-January 2025, news broke that they targeted industrial routers vulnerable to a zero-day.

A few weeks later, security researchers from Akamai said they caught a new variant of the botnet targeting business phone devices built by Mitel.

Via BleepingComputer

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