More than two dozen Chinese operators of the BADBOX 2.0 botnet, which has compromised over 10 million Android devices worldwide, have been sued by Google as part of efforts to disrupt the operation and sinkhole its command-and-control domains, according to The Register.
"This lawsuit enables us to further dismantle the criminal operation behind the botnet, cutting off their ability to commit more crime and fraud," said Google in a blog post that referred to BADBOX 2.0 to being the largest botnet consisting of connected TVs yet. Additional details included in Google's lawsuit showed the BADBOX 2.0 operation to consist of multiple groups, including dedicated sectors for C2 server and domain management, backdoor preinstallation efforts, and secondary infrastructure maintenance. BADBOX 2.0 also includes groups handling ad-fraud campaigns involving malicious versions of legitimate Google Play apps and managing a concealed web browser attack scheme. Such legal action by Google has been praised by Human Security CEO Stu Solomon as significant progress in combating advanced cyber fraud activities.
"This lawsuit enables us to further dismantle the criminal operation behind the botnet, cutting off their ability to commit more crime and fraud," said Google in a blog post that referred to BADBOX 2.0 to being the largest botnet consisting of connected TVs yet. Additional details included in Google's lawsuit showed the BADBOX 2.0 operation to consist of multiple groups, including dedicated sectors for C2 server and domain management, backdoor preinstallation efforts, and secondary infrastructure maintenance. BADBOX 2.0 also includes groups handling ad-fraud campaigns involving malicious versions of legitimate Google Play apps and managing a concealed web browser attack scheme. Such legal action by Google has been praised by Human Security CEO Stu Solomon as significant progress in combating advanced cyber fraud activities.
