Basics of MIPS
Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages (MIPS) was developed by MIPS Technologies (formerly MIPS computer systems). Similar to ARM, at first, it was a 32-bit architecture with 64-bit functionality added later. Taking advantage of the RISC ISA, MIPS processors are characterized by their low power and heat consumption. They can often be found in multiple embedded systems, such as routers and gateways. Several video game consoles such as Sony PlayStation also incorporated them. Unfortunately, due to the popularity of this architecture, the systems that implement it became a target of multiple IoT malware families. An example can be seen in the following screenshot:
Figure 2.8 – IoT malware targeting MIPS-based systems
As the architecture evolved, there were several versions of it, starting from MIPS I and going up to V, and then several releases of the more recent MIPS32/MIPS64. MIPS64 remains backward compatible with MIPS32....
