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Google has significantly degraded NetNut , one of the biggest networks that turns home devices into rented relays for other people's traffic. Working with the FBI, Lumen, and others, Google's Threat Intelligence Group (GTIG)  said this week  it had reduced the network's pool of usable devices by millions. Google identifies NetNut, also tracked as Popa , as a network spread across home devices worldwide, including smart TVs and streaming boxes , and GTIG estimates the network holds at least 2 million devices. If one of those devices is in your home, strangers can route their own traffic through your internet connection, and your address gets the blame for whatever they do with it. How It Works A residential proxy network sells access to real home internet addresses. Attackers pay to route their traffic through your connection so it looks like ordinary home browsing, not the datacenter traffic that security tools tend to block. To build that pool, operators nee...

A new two-stage malware family called RustDuck is hijacking home routers, IP cameras, Android boxes, and poorly secured servers, then stitching them into a network built to knock websites and online services offline. Researchers at QiAnXin's XLab have tracked it since February 2026, and say the real story is not how big it is today, but how fast it is changing. The end goal is a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack: flooding a target with junk traffic from the infected machines until it buckles. RustDuck is one more entrant in a crowded field, but it stands out for two reasons. It is being rewritten from the C programming language into Rust, and its newer versions go to unusual lengths to avoid being studied or shut down. How it spreads RustDuck does not lean on a single clever trick. It sprays a mix of old, well-known weaknesses and hopes one sticks. The first is the oldest in the book: devices left on the internet with weak or default passwords on their rem...

Canada's spy service got a judge's permission to reach into infected servers, home routers, and IoT gear sitting on Canadian soil and neutralize two foreign-run botnets. The Federal Court released a public version of the ruling on June 15. It is the first time the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has used its threat reduction warrant powers this way. The warrant let CSIS alter, degrade, and destroy botnet data on the infected machines and cut the devices loose from the networks. The targets were Canada-based servers, small office and home office (SOHO) routers, and Internet of Things devices: Ring doorbells, security cameras, TVs, and other Wi-Fi-enabled appliances. Justice Catherine Kane granted the warrant on May 1, 2024, renewed it that August, and issued the confidential reasons in February 2026. The warrant stayed out of public view for more than two years, until this month's redacted release. CSIS needed the order because the cleanup would likely hav...

A new malware family is turning forgotten home routers into a distributed reconnaissance and proxy network, not the DDoS botnet these devices usually end up in. QiAnXin's  XLab  calls it AryStinger and counts at least 4,300 infected routers, a total it says is still rising. The distinction matters. AryStinger exists for the stage of an attack that comes before the break-in. Infected devices scan the internet, fingerprint services, enumerate subdomains, tunnel traffic, and run commands on demand, then ship the results back to the operator. Each router becomes a footprinting node and a relay that hides where the real attacker is. Old chips, older bugs The campaign goes after routers built on Realtek's RTL819X chips, hardware that was current around 2012 to 2015. XLab first saw it on March 12, 2026, spreading from a single IP, 107.150.106.14. The binary it pushed was a Linux ELF that no engine on VirusTotal flagged, exploiting two flaws from another era: CVE-2013-3307 ...

Dutch law enforcement authorities, along with counterparts from Canada , Germany, and the U.S., have disrupted malicious infrastructure associated with SocGholish and cleaned up nearly 15,000 infected WordPress websites. "With these actions we deprive cybercriminals of access to infected computer systems," Maikel Rollman of the Netherlands National High Tech Crime Unit said . "This prevents further damage to the digital systems of citizens, businesses and organizations worldwide and limits the spread of malware. It also reduces the risk that these systems are used for cyber attacks on critical infrastructure and other essential societal processes. This marks the beginning of further action against SocGholish." The takedown is part of Operation Endgame , an ongoing international law enforcement initiative to combat botnets and associated criminal infrastructures. It was launched in 2024. As part of the effort, 106 servers linked to SocGholish have been t...