None
<p><span data-contrast="none">Calling Professor Gadget… Kimwolf is coming after gadgets to amass a botnet that can launch DDoS attacks at will.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">The Android variant of the Aisuru DDoS Botnet has taken aim at those TVs and streaming devices and has infected more than two million devices in the last four months, a report from Synthient revealed—two-thirds are not protected. Bad actors have already marshalled these “troops” to take down large websites. And they’re everywhere, with the research showing the greatest concentration in Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Brazil and India.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">“Kimwolf’s rapid growth can be attributed to its targeting of vulnerable devices through its novel exploitation of residential proxy networks,” Synthient researchers wrote in a </span><a href="https://synthient.com/blog/a-broken-system-fueling-botnets" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span data-contrast="none">blog post.</span></a><span data-contrast="auto"> </span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">In fact, its scanning of <a href="https://securityboulevard.com/2025/07/optimizing-web-scraping-with-residential-proxy-networks/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">proxy networks</a> was at an unprecedented scale, with them holding the number one position many times for the most-targeted domain,” researchers added, with scanning often 24/7 and very little downtime—attributable to null routing or infrastructure changes.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Bad actors don’t wait for the devices to be in use in homes before they infect them—they are often infected before received by consumers, making the devices are pickings. The research found that just over two-thirds are not protected at all.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="auto">Synthient said “67% of all Android devices are unauthenticated, leaving them vulnerable to remote code execution,” and researchers found around six million vulnerable Ips. “These devices are often shipped pre-infected with SDKs from proxy providers,” and once users connect them to home networks, “Kimwolf will have scanned and exploited the device within minutes,” they wrote.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}"> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">The botnet “is a stark reminder that office walls and cloud workloads no longer define the corporate perimeter,” says Crystal Morin, senior cybersecurity strategist at Sysdig. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Noting that Android-powered streaming boxes and smart TVs are vulnerable even before they “reach a consumer’s front door,” Morin says there’s “an alarming scale of supply chain and ‘living off the land’ risk.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">And that translates into danger for organizations since “every unmanaged device on a remote employee’s home network is a risk enabler,” Morin says. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“While these devices typically don’t connect to corporate networks in most cases, their presence on the same home Wi-Fi network as a work laptop can create an opportunity for lateral movement, adversary-in-the-middle attacks, DDoS campaigns, or endpoint abuse,” she says. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Though they have not been dismissed, DDoS attacks have been seen as a network resilience issue. But there’s been a noticeable shift, says Randolph Barr, CISO at Cequence Security, noting they “now threaten business availability and customer trust, especially as more operations depend on applications and APIs.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Kimwolf and similar botnets typically don’t prioritize system intrusion or data theft, Barr says.</span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“Instead, their main goals are disruption, visibility, and leverage, with making money as a bonus,” and “attackers use these tools to test defenses, boost their reputation in underground circles, and even sell disruption as a service,” Barr explains.</span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">The impact of downtime isn’t theoretical, he notes, “it genuinely damages customer trust, sales, and contractual commitments.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Kimwolf highlights a systemic failure across supply chains, device security, and network defense,” says April Lenhard, principal product manager, cyber threat intelligence, at Qualys. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“IoT devices are now easily weaponized platforms where attacks are cheaper, anonymous, and resilient at an unprecedented scale,” she says, though no one should really be surprised. </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“This volume is what the industry predicted a decade ago: And it’s now the new operational pace in 2026 and less of a black swan anomaly.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">While botnets have previously been associated with large-scale DDoS attacks and occasional crypto mining scams, in the age of identity security threats, “We see [botnets] taking on a new role in the threat ecosystem,” said James Maude, Field CTO at BeyondTrust. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“Having access to a vast network may allow threat actors to perform credential stuffing and password spray attacks at huge scale,” that in the past “might have originated from a single server or data center which was easy to block traffic from, now threat actors can take a list of credentials from one breach and use a botnet to test the credentials against common online services where each login attempt comes from a different residential IP address,” says Maude.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Botnets, unfortunately, can “evade geolocation controls by stealing a user’s credentials or hijacking a browser session and then using a botnet node close to the victim’s actual location and maybe even using the same ISP as the victim to evade unusual login detections or access policies,” says Maude. “With the rise of Adversary in the Middle (AiTM) toolkits, we are seeing growing demand for a network of compromised devices to use as proxy exit nodes to make use of phished and compromised identities.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">To counter requires efforts from both individuals and enterprises—the former should “treat</span><span data-contrast="none"> newly purchased connected devices as untrusted,” says Morin, with firmware being updated immediately, says Morin. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“</span><span data-contrast="none">Security teams must shift from a prevention-first mindset to an assume breach strategy that accounts for these unmanaged risky endpoints operating outside of corporate boundaries,” she says, first eliminating “ungoverned connected hardware from their corporate IT and office environments and strictly segment corporate access from unmanaged consumer-grade devices.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">In addition, zero-trust controls and micro-segmentation are prerequisites “to contain the blast radius if an employee’s home-office gadget turns into a botnet node,” she explains, as well as enforcing VPN usage and endpoint firewalls. </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“Security teams also need to prioritize real-time agentless visibility and runtime detection to catch the anomalous behavioral signals at the network level, such as proxying, egress traffic, identity misuse, and IP abuse, which, combined, can signify whether a device is operating as a zombie for an adversary,” Morin adds.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Barr says mitigation, though, is tough “</span><span data-contrast="none">because attackers use home devices like smart TVs and streaming gadgets to make their traffic look like it’s coming from real households and mobile networks” with hybrid work amping the risk.</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">“</span><span data-contrast="none">Employees sometimes connect through home networks with devices that aren’t monitored or regularly updated,” Barr says, with one compromise threatening a company’s traffic and reputation. “This isn’t about user error; it’s a trust and compliance issue for the company.” </span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":480,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">Barr urges security teams not confine their efforts to traffic volume but rather use tools that “focus on understanding how apps and APIs should behave” to understand normal patterns so they can spot small signs of automation or abuse, and adjust protections as attacks evolve.”</span><span data-ccp-props='{"201341983":0,"335557856":16777215,"335559739":0,"335559740":240}'> </span></p><p><span data-contrast="none">By monitoring at the app and API level, defenders “can protect brand reputation, keep systems up, and meet SLAs without disrupting real customers,” Barr says, and employing behavior-based security tools will give organizations an edge over others “because these tools directly connect security with business 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