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1 Million Third-Party Android Devices Have a Secret Backdoor for Scammers


New research shows at least a million inexpensive Android devices—from TV streaming boxes to car infotainment systems—are compromised to allow bad actors to commit ad fraud and other cybercrime.

In 2023, researchers revealed that tens of thousands of Android TV boxes being used in homes, schools, and businesses were equipped with secret backdoors that allowed them to be used in a host of cybercrime and online fraud. At least 1 million Android-based TV streaming boxes, tablets, projectors, and after-sale car infotainment systems are infected with malware that conscripts them into a scammer-controlled botnet, according to new research shared exclusively with WIRED by the cybersecurity firm Human Security. Human, Trend Micro, and Google also collaborated with the internet security group Shadow Server to neuter as much Badbox 2.0 infrastructure as possible by sinkholing the botnet so it essentially sends its traffic and requests for instructions into a void.

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