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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...

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of a "resurgence and expansion" of JDY , a covert network associated with China-nexus state-sponsored threat actors. "The JDY botnet comprises over 1,500 SOHO [small office and home office] and IoT devices and operates as a centrally controlled, high-performance scanner used to discover, fingerprint, and continuously map exposed services at scale," Lumen's Black Lotus Labs said in a report shared with The Hacker News. JDY was first flagged as a cluster within another botnet codenamed KV-botnet in mid-December 2023. Primarily used for broader scanning against internet targets, the stealthy network comprising compromised SOHO routers, firewalls, and IoT devices has been put to use by Chinese hacking groups like Volt Typhoon. Following KV-botnet's takedown by the U.S. government in early 2024, the botnet operators began making behavioral changes to the network, with the second KV cluster largely going offline. It...

Dutch authorities have announced the takedown of a botnet that enslaved millions of infected devices, including computers, tablets, smartphones, and IoT devices, to carry out malicious attacks. The bot network, per the Dutch Politie and the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), consisted of at least 17 million infected devices. More than 200 servers located in the Netherlands acted as the platform's backend infrastructure. According to a statement issued by the NCSC, police officials seized a subset of these servers from a hosting provider that provided the infrastructure. The provider is said to have subsequently taken the botnet offline following its use for criminal purposes. Although the name of the botnet was not explicitly mentioned, local news outlet NL Times reported that the service in question was Asocks, a company that offers residential proxies . In April 2024, HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence team identified a campaign dubbed PROXYLIB that involved inf...

The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) on Thursday announced the arrest of a Canadian man in connection with allegedly operating a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) botnet known as Kimwolf . In tandem, Jacob Butler (aka Dort), 23, Ottawa, Canada, has been charged with offenses related to the development and operation of the botnet. Kimwolf is assessed to be a variant of AISURU that specifically infected Android devices with an exposed Android Debug Bridge (ADB) service. "Kimwolf targeted infected devices which were traditionally 'firewalled' from the rest of the internet, such as digital photo frames and web cameras," the DoJ said . "The infected devices were enslaved by the botnet operators." "The operators then used a 'cybercrime-as-a-service' model to sell access to the infected devices to other cybercriminals. The operators and their customers forced the victim devices to participate in DDoS attacks, targeting computers and servers l...

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered four new npm packages containing information-stealing malware, one of which is a clone of the Shai-Hulud worm open-sourced by TeamPCP . The list of identified packages is below - chalk-tempalte (825 Downloads) @deadcode09284814/axios-util (284 Downloads) axois-utils (963 Downloads) color-style-utils (934 Downloads) "One of the packages (chalk-tempalte) contains a direct clone of the Shai-Hulud source code that TeamPCP leaked last week, probably inspired as part of the supply chain attack competition that was published in BreachForums not long after," OX Security's Moshe Siman Tov Bustan said. Interestingly, the malicious payloads embedded into the four npm packages are different, despite them being published by the same npm user, " deadcode09284814 ." As of writing, the four libraries are still available for download from npm. An analysis of the packages has revealed that "axois-utils" is designed ...

The Russian state-sponsored hacking group known as Turla has transformed its custom backdoor Kazuar into a modular peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet that's engineered for stealth and persistent access to compromised hosts. Turla, per the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), is assessed to be affiliated with Center 16 of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB). It overlaps with activity traced by the broader cybersecurity community under the names ATG26, Blue Python, Iron Hunter, Pensive Ursa, Secret Blizzard (formerly Krypton), Snake, SUMMIT, Uroburos, Venomous Bear, Waterbug, and WRAITH. The hacking group is known for its attacks targeting government, diplomatic, and defense sectors in Europe and Central Asia, as well as endpoints previously breached by Aqua Blizzard (aka Actinium and Gamaredon) to support the Kremlin's strategic objectives. "This upgrade aligns with Secret Blizzard's broader objective of gaini...

A threat actor named Mr_Rot13 has been attributed to the exploitation of a recently disclosed critical cPanel flaw to deploy a backdoor codenamed Filemanager on compromised environments. The attack exploits CVE-2026-41940 , a vulnerability impacting cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) that could result in an authentication bypass and allow remote attackers to gain elevated control of the control panel. According to a new report from QiAnXin XLab, the security defect has been exploited by a number of threat actors shortly after its public disclosure late last month, resulting in malicious behaviors like cryptocurrency mining, ransomware, botnet propagation, and backdoor implantation. "Monitoring data shows that more than 2,000 attacker source IPs worldwide are currently involved in automated attacks and cybercrime activities targeting this vulnerability," XLab researchers said. "These IPs are distributed across multiple regions globally, primarily originating from Germ...

Cybersecurity researchers have exposed a new Mirai -derived botnet that self-identifies as xlabs_v1 and targets internet-exposed devices running Android Debug Bridge ( ADB ) to enlist them in a network capable of carrying out distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Hunt.io, which detailed the malware, said it made the discovery after identifying an exposed directory on a Netherlands-hosted server at the IP address "176.65.139[.]44" without requiring any authentication. The malware supports "21 flood variants across TCP, UDP, and raw protocols, including RakNet and OpenVPN-shaped UDP, capable of bypassing consumer-grade DDoS protection," Hunt.io said, adding it's offered as a DDoS-for-hire service designed for targeting game servers and Minecraft hosts. What makes xlabs_v1 notable is that it seeks out Android devices running an exposed ADB service on TCP port 5555, meaning any gear that comes with the tool enabled by default, such as Android TV boxes,...

A previously unknown threat actor has been observed targeting government and military entities in Southeast Asia, alongside a smaller cluster of managed service providers (MSPs) and hosting providers in the Philippines, Laos, Canada, South Africa, and the U.S., by exploiting the recently disclosed vulnerability in cPanel. The activity, detected by Ctrl-Alt-Intel on May 2, 2026, involves the abuse of CVE-2026-41940 , a critical vulnerability in cPanel and WebHost Manager (WHM) that could result in an authentication bypass and allow remote attackers to gain elevated control of the control panel. The attack efforts have originated from the IP address "95.111.250[.]175," primarily singling out government and military domains associated with the Philippines (*.mil.ph and (*.ph)) and Laos (*.gov.la), as well as MSPs and hosting providers, using publicly-available   proof-of-concepts (PoCs). In addition, Ctrl-Alt-Intel revealed that the threat actor used a separate custom exp...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on Friday added four vulnerabilities impacting SimpleHelp, Samsung MagicINFO 9 Server, and D-Link DIR-823X series routers to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities ( KEV ) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation. The list of vulnerabilities is below - CVE-2024-57726 (CVSS score: 9.9) - A missing authorization vulnerability in SimpleHelp that could allow low-privileged technicians to create API keys with excessive permissions, which can then be used to escalate privileges to the server admin role. CVE-2024-57728 (CVSS score: 7.2) - A path traversal vulnerability in SimpleHelp that allows admin users to upload arbitrary files anywhere on the file system by uploading a crafted zip file (i.e., zip slip), which can be exploited to execute arbitrary code on the host in the context of the SimpleHelp server user. CVE-2024-7399 (CVSS score: 8.8) - A path traversal vulnerability in Samsung MagicINFO 9 Server that cou...

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has revealed that an unnamed federal civilian agency's Cisco Firepower device running Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software was compromised in September 2025 with a new malware called FIRESTARTER . FIRESTARTER, per CISA and the U.K.'s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), is assessed to be a backdoor designed for remote access and control. It's believed to be deployed as part of a "widespread" campaign orchestrated by an advanced persistent threat (APT) actor to obtain access to Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firmware by exploiting now-patched security flaws such as - CVE-2025-20333 (CVSS score: 9.9) - An improper validation of user-supplied input vulnerability that could allow an authenticated, remote attacker with valid VPN user credentials to execute arbitrary code as root on an affected device by sending crafted HTTP requests. CVE-2025-20362 (CVSS score: 6.5) - An improper...

Threat actors associated with The Gentlemen ransomware‑as‑a‑service (RaaS) operation have been observed attempting to deploy a known proxy malware called SystemBC . According to new research published by Check Point, the command-and-control (C2 or C&C) server linked to SystemBC has led to the discovery of a botnet of more than 1,570 victims. "SystemBC establishes SOCKS5 network tunnels within the victim’s environment and connects to its C&C server using a custom RC4‑encrypted protocol," Check Point said. "It can also download and execute additional malware, with payloads either written to disk or injected directly into memory." Since its emergence in July 2025, The Gentlemen has quickly established itself as one of the most prolific ransomware groups, claiming more than 320 victims on its data leak site. Operating under a classic double-extortion model, the group is versatile as it's sophisticated, exhibiting capabilities to target Windows, Linux, N...

Threat actors are exploiting security flaws in TBK DVR and end‑of‑life (EoL) TP-Link Wi-Fi routers to deploy Mirai -botnet variants on compromised devices, according to findings from Fortinet FortiGuard Labs and Palo Alto Networks Unit 42. The attack targeting TBK DVR devices has been found to exploit CVE-2024-3721 (CVSS score: 6.3), a medium-severity command injection vulnerability affecting TBK DVR-4104 and DVR-4216 digital video recording devices, to deliver a Mirai variant called Nexcorium . "IoT devices are increasingly prime targets for large-scale attacks due to their widespread use, lack of patching, and often weak security settings," security researcher Vincent Li said . "Threat actors continue exploiting known vulnerabilities to gain initial access and deploy malware that can persist, spread, and cause distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks." This is not the first time the vulnerability has been exploited in the wild. Over the past year, the ...

An international law enforcement operation has taken down 53 domains and arrested four people in connection with commercial distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) operations that were used by more than 75,000 cybercriminals. The ongoing effort, dubbed Operation PowerOFF , disrupted access to the DDoS-for-hire services, took down the technical infrastructure supporting them, and obtained access to databases containing over 3 million criminal user accounts. Authorities are also sending warning emails and letters to the identified criminal users, and 25 search warrants have been issued. As many as 21 countries participated in the action: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Sweden, Thailand, the U.K., and the U.S. "Booter services allow users to launch DDoS attacks against targeted websites, servers, or networks," Europol said in a statement. "Their inf...

Cybersecurity researchers have warned of an active malicious campaign that's targeting the workforce in the Czech Republic with a previously undocumented botnet dubbed PowMix since at least December 2025. "PowMix employs randomized command-and-control (C2) beaconing intervals, rather than persistent connection to the C2 server, to evade the network signature detections," Cisco Talos researcher Chetan Raghuprasad said in a report published today. "PowMix embeds the encrypted heartbeat data along with unique identifiers of the victim machine into the C2 URL paths, mimicking legitimate REST API URLs. PowMix has the capability to remotely update the new C2 domain to the botnet configuration file dynamically." The attack chain begins with a malicious ZIP file, likely delivered via a phishing email, to activate a multi-stage infection chain that drops PowMix. Specifically, it involves a Windows Shortcut (LNK) that's used to launch a PowerShell loader, which ...

Cybersecurity researchers have flagged a new variant ofmalware called Chaos that'scapable of hitting misconfigured cloud deployments, marking an expansion of the botnet's targeting infrastructure. "Chaos malware is increasingly targeting misconfigured cloud deployments, expanding beyond its traditional focus on routers and edge devices," Darktrace said in a new report. Chaos was first documented by Lumen Black Lotus Labs in September 2022, describing it as a cross-platform malware capable of targeting Windows and Linux environments to run remote shell commands, drop additional modules, propagate to other hosts by brute-forcing SSH keys, mine cryptocurrency, and launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks via HTTP, TLS, TCP, UDP, and WebSocket. The malware is assessed to be an evolution of another DDoS malware known as Kaiji  that has singled out misconfigured Docker instances.It's currently not known wh...

Cybersecurity researchers have lifted the curtain on a stealthy botnet that's designed for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. Called Masjesu , the botnet has been advertised via Telegram as a DDoS-for-hire service since it first surfaced in 2023. It's capable of targeting a wide range of IoT devices, such as routers and gateways, spanning multiple architectures. "Built for persistence and low visibility, Masjesu favors careful, low-key execution over widespread infection, deliberately avoiding blocklisted IP ranges such as those belonging to the Department of Defense (DoD) to ensure long-term survival," Trellix security researcher Mohideen Abdul Khader F said in a Tuesday report. It's worth noting that the commercial offering also goes by the moniker XorBot owing to its use of XOR-based encryption to conceal strings, configurations, and payload data. It was first documented by Chinese security vendor NSFOCUS in December 2023, linking it to an ope...

The Russia-linked threat actor known as APT28 (aka Forest Blizzard) has been linked to a new campaign that has compromised insecure MikroTik and TP-Link routers and modified their settings to turn them into malicious infrastructure under their control as part of a cyber espionage campaign since at least May 2025. The large-scale exploitation campaign has been codenamed   FrostArmada by Lumen's Black Lotus Labs, with Microsoft describing it as an effort to exploit vulnerable home and small office (SOHO) internet devices to hijack DNS traffic and enable passive collection of network data. "Their technique modified DNS settings on compromised routers to hijack local network traffic to capture and exfiltrate authentication credentials," Black Lotus Labs said in a report shared with The Hacker News. "When targeted domains were requested by a user, the actor redirected traffic to an attacker-in-the-middle (AitM) node, where those credentials were harv...