Botnet of 17 Million Devices Dismantled in the Netherlands
Botnet of 17 Million Devices Dismantled in the Netherlands
Publish Date: 2026-05-30 04:16:00
Source Domain: securityaffairs.com
Botnet of 17 Million Devices Dismantled in the Netherlands
Pierluigi Paganini
May 30, 2026
Dutch authorities seized 200 servers running a 17-million-device botnet linked to proxy service Asocks.
Dutch authorities have taken offline a massive botnet of at least 17 million devices and seized more than 200 servers at a local provider that supported the operation. Infected devices included computers, tablets, and smartphones.
The action was carried out following an investigation from the Police in collaboration with the country’s cybersecurity agency, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).
“The network was discovered following a report from a security researcher to the NCSC. The NCSC subsequently informed the police. Together, they took up the report and conducted an investigation.” reads the press release published by NCSC. “The investigation revealed that the botnet consisted of at least 17 million infected devices and that the 200 servers used to host the infrastructure were located in the Netherlands.”
A security researcher uncovered the botnet after reporting it to the Dutch NCSC, which worked with police to investigate. Police seized several servers for forensic analysis, while the hosting provider shut down the infrastructure after confirming it was being used for criminal operations.
According to the Netherland Times, the botnet is linked to ASOCKS, a residential proxy seller that provides services designed to hide users’ identities and locations online. These services can be abused for cybercrime, including DDoS attacks, phishing campaigns, botnet operations, and web scraping. Dutch authorities warned that residential proxies make malicious traffic appear legitimate, complicating detection and mitigation efforts because attacks can seem to originate from normal local internet users.
“The Asocks network operated as a “residential proxy service,”…
