Shutting the Door on the XCPE Botnet
Introduction Last week, Google and industry partners dismantled the XCPE backdoor which enrolled more than 1.3 million set-top boxes into a botnet. We assess with high confidence that the backdoor and botnet were intentionally developed, deployed, and operated for financial gain by Videostrong Technology Co., an Android Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) and Original Device Manufacturer (ODM). Videostrong monetized the backdoor by selling access to criminal affiliates and loading those affiliates’ malware modules onto infected devices. These secondary modules were conducting ad-fraud; silently enrolling infected devices into residential proxy networks; and loading additional malware onto XCPE-compromised devices. We also took action to disrupt the command and control (C2) domains that operate these affiliate modules. Because these affiliates each have diversified distribution channels for their modules beyond XCPE, we assess that taking down their C2 domains will sever access to at
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The summary and image come from Google Threat Intelligence Group; the image is shown from their website.