Get the latest tech news

Police Dismantles Botnet Selling Hacked Routers As Residential Proxies


An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: Law enforcement authorities have dismantled a botnet that infected thousands of routers over the last 20 years to build two networks of residential proxies known as Anyproxy and 5socks. The U.S. Justice Department also indicted three Russian...

The U.S. Justice Department also indicted three Russian nationals (Alexey Viktorovich Chertkov, Kirill Vladimirovich Morozov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Shishkin) and a Kazakhstani (Dmitriy Rubtsov) for their involvement in operating, maintaining, and profiting from these two illegal services. Court documents show that the now-dismantled botnet infected older wireless internet routers worldwide with malware since at least 2004, allowing unauthorized access to compromised devices to be sold as proxy servers on Anyproxy.net and 5socks.net. Users are allowed to connect directly with proxies using no authentication, which, as documented in previous cases, can lead to a broad spectrum of malicious actors gaining free access," Black Lotus Labs said.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Slashdot

Read more on:

Photo of residential proxies

residential proxies

Photo of hacked routers

hacked routers

Photo of Police dismantles

Police dismantles

Related news:

News photo

Police dismantles botnet selling hacked routers as residential proxies

News photo

FBI and Dutch police seize and shut down botnet of hacked routers

News photo

Dangerous global botnet fueling residential proxies is being hit in major crackdown