BleepingComputer reports that almost 1.6 million Android TVs around the world have been roped in by a novel Vo1d malware botnet variant as part of a new attack campaign initially discovered in November.
More than half of the impacted devices remain active, while Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, Argentina, Thailand, and China accounted for most of the infections this month, according to an XLab report.
India was also observed to have its bots spike from 3,900 to 217,000 in only three days, with researchers attributing the surge to Vo1d's leasing of its botnet infrastructure.
"Once the lease period ends, the bots rejoin the Vo1d network. This reintegration leads to a rapid spike in infection counts as the bots become active again under Vo1d's control," said researchers.
With Vo1d enabling the obfuscation of malicious activity and ad fraud, users of Android TVs have been urged to be more vigilant of their device purchases and available security updates, as well as only download apps from Google Play and deactivate remote access features when not needed.
