NetNut cracked as Google and FBI target 2 million-device botnet


Tech companies working with US law enforcement “significantly degraded” the NetNut residential proxy network as part of an ongoing effort to disrupt the tools cybercriminals use to conceal their activity, say researchers.

The work was carried out by Google, Lumen, Shadowserver, the FBI, and others, and marks a continuation of the IPIDEA proxy network disruption from January.

According to Google Cloud, those working on the operation believe NetNut was among the most popular residential proxy network providers and had at least 2 million devices enrolled in its botnet, comprising mainly small TV-streaming hardware. Crims often use residential proxy networks to make it look like their traffic is actually coming from legit homes and businesses.

Read more…
Source:  The Register


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest cyber security news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Dutch police take down hornets’ nest of DDoS botnets

    October 2, 2019

    Dutch police have taken down this week a bulletproof hosting provider that has sheltered tens of IoT botnets that have been responsible for hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks around the world, ZDNet has learned. Servers were seized, and two men were arrested yesterday at the offices of KV Solutions BV (KV hereinafter), a so-called bulletproof hosting provider, ...

  • Feds Indict 281 People for Involvement in Massive Email Fraud Scheme

    September 11, 2019

    Federal authorities have arrested 281 people and seized nearly $3.7 million in a coordinated effort between multiple agencies to disrupt a massive email-fraud scheme. Perpetrators of a global business email compromise (BEC) scheme were the target of a four-month investigation that began in May called Operation reWired, a coordinated effort by the U.S. Departments of Justice (DoJ), ...

  • Terrorism, espionage, and cyber: ASIO’s omne trium perfectum

    September 6, 2019

    “I had to remind myself the other day that when 9-11 took place, of course, there were no tweets, it’s interesting. It only seems like yesterday. There was no social media as we know it today,” Australia’s Director-General of Security Duncan Lewis said during an address to the Lowy Institute. Since then, a lot has changed ...

  • Poland pressured to say if it bought Israeli phone spyware

    September 4, 2019

    The Polish government is coming under pressure to clarify whether it has purchased sophisticated and potentially illegal phone surveillance technology that has been used to stifle dissent in other countries. Opposition lawmakers asked Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki whether the special services bought Pegasus, the spyware produced by NSO Group, an Israeli company. Morawiecki appeared to sidestep the ...

  • Some of Russia’s surveillance tech leaked data for more than a year

    August 30, 2019

    A Russian security researcher has found that hardware equipment meant to be used by Russian authorities to intercept internet traffic had been leaving data exposed on the internet. The leaky equipment were SORM devices. These are hardware wiretaps that all Russian internet service providers and mobile telecoms must install in their data centers to comply with ...

  • Russian police take down malware gang that infected 800,000+ Android smartphones

    August 29, 2019

    Russian authorities have arrested members of the TipTop cybercrime group, believed to have infected more than 800,000 Android smartphones with malware since 2015. The group operated by renting Android banking trojans from underground hacking forums, which they later hid inside Android apps distributed via search engine ads and third-party app stores. TipTop has been active since 2015, ...