Dec 28, 2020
There has been a new surge in infections by the well-known Phorpiex botnet which has made it the month’s most prevalent malware, impacting 4% of organisations globally.
Phorpiex was last seen in the Threat Index’s top 10 in June this year, according to Check Point Research’s latest Global Threat Index for November 2020.
The Phorpiex botnet was first reported in 2010, and at its peak controlled more than a million infected hosts. Known for distributing other malware families via spam as well as fueling large-scale “sextortion” spam campaigns and cryptomining, Phorpiex has again been distributing the Avaddon ransomware, as Check Point researchers originally reported earlier this year. Avaddon is a relatively new Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) variant, and its operators have again been recruiting affiliates to distribute the ransomware for a cut of the profits. Avaddon has been distributed via JS and Excel files as part of malspam campaigns and is able to en