More than 192,000 Android smartphones and TVs have been compromised with the BadBox malware botnet, signifying an expansion of attacks following the disruption of its operations by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security that was able to sinkhole at least 30,000 Android devices, BleepingComputer reports.
Mounting BadBox activity has been evident with the registration of over 160,000 unique IP addresses, most of which were from Hisense smartphones and the Yandex 4K QLED Smart TV, within the span of 24 hours, while Russia, China, India, Belarus, Brazil, and Ukraine accounted for most of the compromised devices, a report from BitSight showed. "It's the first time a major brand Smart TV is seen directly communicating at such volume with a BadBox command and control (C2) domain, broadening the scope of affected devices beyond Android TV boxes, tablets, and smartphones," said BitSight, which urged immediate patching, isolation, and internet disconnection for smart devices amid escalating BadBox attacks.
