Google has filed a lawsuit against the operators of what is believed to be the world’s largest smart TV botnet, BadBox 2.0.
In its complaint, the company stated that this botnet, based in China, compromised more than 10 million uncertified devices, including set-top boxes for streaming, tablets, and projectors. Google said that the cybercriminals pre-installed malware or used malware to download malware onto hardware that was running open source Android software. These compromised devices were then used to conduct “large-scale advertising fraud and other digital crimes.” In addition to the lawsuit, which seeks an injunction against the botnet operators, as well as unspecified damages, Google said it has updated Google Play Protect to automatically block known applications associated with BadBox 2.0.
The FBI is also working to dismantle BadBox 2.0, which was warned about last month. The initial campaign of the BadBox botnet, which also mainly infiltrated Android operating systems, was detected in 2023 and shut down in 2024.
Google has been targeted by this type of cybercrime activity before. In 2021, it took down Glupteba, which was one of the largest botnets at the time, covering about a million Windows computers.
