New IoT Botnet Uses 1,496 Default Passwords and Seven Persistence Mechanisms

**TuxBot v3 Evolution** is a modular IoT botnet framework that targets Linux-based and embedded devices using Telnet credential brute forcing (1,496 credential pairs), supports 17 CPU architectures, implements multiple persistence techniques and stealth checks, and provides encrypted C2 channels (X25519 + ChaCha20-Poly1305) along with DGA/DNS/P2P fallbacks; researchers observed active samples (VirusTotal, Jan 2026) and published IOCs including a SHA-256 hash.