Why this Monero mining malware was a complete failure

When most people picture a cryptocurrency mining virus capable of infecting millions of Internet of Things (IoT) smart devices, they might envision that the group behind the operation must be filled with some seriously talented, albeit misguided individuals.

While that very may well be the case for most malware, one recent example, known as LiquorBot shows that sometimes more than just technological savvy is needed to craft a successful virus.

LiquorBot was first spotted in the wild by Romanian cybersecurity company BitDefender back in May 2019. Its researchers then began tracking the development of its code—including watching for feature updates and changes. The team found that the virus is a redeveloped version of a widespread earlier virus known as Mirai, but was instead written in a programming language called Golang.

Although the bot isn’t particularly impressive in terms of…