In what could only be described as a masterclass in digital nostalgia, hackers are exploiting an ancient vulnerability in the Wazuh Server to unleash not one, but two, Mirai-based botnet attacks. Because why settle for modern cybercrime sophistication when you can relive the glory days of the internet’s wild west?

It seems the hackers just couldn’t resist the siren call of an unsafe deserialization vulnerability in the Wazuh Server, nostalgically echoing back to a time when simply clicking a dodgy link was enough to unravel your digital life. With a CVE score of 9.9, it’s basically the ‘I’m with Stupid’ t-shirt of security holes.

Security firm Akamai, who somehow got stuck playing the part of the disappointed parent in this saga, discovered the exploits in March 2025. Experts suggest that CVE-2025-24016 is so wide open, even a VPN sales intern could trip over it and accidentally launch a DDoS attack from their lunch break.