FBI Seizes NetNut Proxy Platform, Popa Botnet
The FBI, working with industry partners, seized hundreds of domains tied to NetNut, a residential proxy service run by Nasdaq-listed Israeli firm Alarum Technologies. The seizure follows reporting that linked NetNut to the Popa botnet, a network of at least two million devices infected without meaningful consent from their owners.
Why this matters: Two million devices is not an abstract number. Those are real people's routers, phones, or computers quietly recruited into someone else's infrastructure — their bandwidth sold to paying customers, their hardware used as cover for other people's internet traffic. They almost certainly had no idea. That is the core of what residential proxy networks built on botnets actually are: a business model that depends on taking something from people without asking. The FBI moved after a reporter did the connecting work. That sequence is worth remembering.
Who should care: Cybersecurity · Privacy officers · Administrators · Lawyers · Compliance · General readers · Policy
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