The geographical location of your business may not matter when it comes to remote server access, but it does dictate what strand of malware you may be exposed to. IT News for Australian Business recently reported on a strain in that region known as "Mayhem." Although it has affected computers around the world, the source noted that 16 have been targeted in Australia and New Zealand combined, and the targets are those using Unix-based software.
The functions of this malware seem to be relatively versatile, allowing the hackers using it to seize an infected system and connect it to the rest of the internet, with a variety of plug-ins available that can change its function.
In an article cited by IT News and written by a team led by Andrew Kovalev, the use of Mayhem is compared to the general trend of malware seen on the web.
"In the last two years, several more sophisticated malware families have been discovered," they write. "Mayhem is a multi-purpose modular bot for web servers."
This is all worth considering if your organization is working with systems based on Unix and needs support as they undergo a legacy system modernization. Because Unix has been behind some of the most common operating systems, including those used in the mobile sphere, odds are that malware targeting it and its descendants can have far-reaching consequences.
This could be especially true if the number of users of Unix-derived mobile systems, analyzed in this Forbes article from last year reached 900 million at the time.
Since it's likely that your legacy modernization effort might run into Unix design, compatible solutions should be sought out. The good news for Flynet Viewer owners that are using Flynet to access legacy terminal applications is that Mayhem attacks web servers running on UNIX so if your server is behind the Flynet solution it is less vulnerable.