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Surge in Go Malware Attacking Linux Systems and IoT Devices Observed

Calendar Mar 01, 2021 • User Avatar Brittany Day
1 min read
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Topics Covered

malware cyber crime linux threats botnets IoT iot security Go programming cybercrime threats go malware crypto miners malware increase

There's been a 2,000% increase of new malware written in Go over the past few years. Many of these malware families are botnets targeting Linux and IoT devices to either install crypto miners or enroll the infected machine into DDoS botnets.

The number of malware strains coded in the Go programming language has seen a sharp increase of around 2,000% over the last few years, since 2017, cybersecurity firm Intezer said in a report published this week.

The company's findings highlight and confirm a general trend in the malware ecosystem, where malware authors have slowly moved away from C and C++ to golang, a programming language developed and launched by Google in 2007.