NetNut cracked as Google and FBI target 2 million-device botnet
Crims often use residential proxy networks to make it look like their traffic is actually coming from legit homes and businesses. REG AD googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('labrador/thereg/article/desktop/b'); }); In the same way that other residential proxy networks expand their pool of enrolled devices, NetNut distributed its own SDK via these devices. Not only does it help feed the cybercrime ecosystem, but it can also lead to vulnerabilities elsewhere in home networks.NetNut offered its own standalone proxy networks, as well as mobile and datacenter proxies, and a slew of scrapers and datasets.
- ▪Crims often use residential proxy networks to make it look like their traffic is actually coming from legit homes and businesses.
- ▪REG AD googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('labrador/thereg/article/desktop/b'); }); In the same way that other residential proxy networks expand their pool of enrolled devices, NetNut distributed its own SDK via these devices
- ▪Not only does it help feed the cybercrime ecosystem, but it can also lead to vulnerabilities elsewhere in home networks.NetNut offered its own standalone proxy networks, as well as mobile and datacenter proxies, and a slew of scrapers and d
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| Original publisher | theregister |
| Canonical URL | https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/07/03/netnut-cracked-as-google-and-fbi-target-2-million-device-botnet/5266414 |
| Publication time | Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:03:00 +0200 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-03T12:11:45.390Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-03T12:11:45.390Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | g_QclWPh0of6 |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
(function() { let windowUrl = window.location.href; windowUrl = windowUrl.substring(windowUrl.indexOf('?') + 1); let messageElement = document.querySelector('.shareableMessage'); if (windowUrl && windowUrl.includes('code') && windowUrl.includes('expires')) { messageElement.style.display = 'block'; } })(); Security NetNut cracked as Google and FBI target 2 million-device botnet Other residential proxy brands may rely on the same network Connor Jones Connor Jones Cybersecurity reporter Published fri 3 Jul 2026 // 13:03 UTC Tech companies working with US law enforcement "significantly degraded" the NetNut residential proxy network as part of an ongoing effort to disrupt the tools cybercriminals use to conceal their activity, say researchers.The work was carried out by Google, Lumen,…
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