Tengu Botnet Reboots Compromised Linux Devices When Defenders Kill Its Process

Jul 28, 2026 - 17:45
Tengu Botnet Reboots Compromised Linux Devices When Defenders Kill Its Process
A new Mirai-derived botnet called Tengu can use a compromised Linux device's hardware watchdog to trigger a reboot when defenders kill its main process. If that happens, Tengu's other persistence mechanisms get another chance to relaunch it. Nozomi Networks Labs observed the dropper reaching its honeypots through Telnet credential brute force. Tengu supports 25 distributed denial-of-service (