BrickerBot

A new malware strain called BrickerBot is bricking Internet of Things (IoT) devices around the world by corrupting their storage capability and reconfiguring kernel parameters.

The end result is a bricked IoT device that will stop working within seconds of getting infected.  Experts call these attack PDoS (Permanent Denial of Service), but they are also known as "phlashing."

All in all, BrickerBot isn't like anything we've seen before in the landscape of IoT malware.  Most IoT malware strains try to hoard devices in massive botnets that are then used as proxies to relay malicious traffic or to launch DDoS attacks. 

BrickerBot could ... be the work of an Internet vigilante that wants to destroy insecure IoT devices.

-- Catalin Cimpanu, in an article at BleepingComputer.com, 6 April 2017