Evooo1Bot is a Mirai-based Linux botnet that hijacks routers and IoT devices for DDoS attacks, credential theft and criminal proxy services.
Fortinet’s FortiGuard Labs disclosed Evooo1Bot in mid-August, a previously undocumented Linux botnet that’s been active since July 2026. The bot borrows Mirai‘s DDoS engine but adds encrypted command-and-control communications, an SSH brute-force scanner, a credential sniffer, and a SOCKS5 proxy module on top.
“FortiGuard Labs has been tracking a previously undocumented Linux botnet family, which we have named Evooo1Bot. The name derives from the hardcoded string “evooo1” found in every binary.” reads the report published by Fortinet. “While the malware reuses the DDoS engine from the publicly leaked Mirai source code, it extends the original framework with numerous capabilities, including encrypted C2 communications, an SSH brute-force scanner, a SOCKS relay module, a credential sniffer, and an integrated exploit arsenal targeting multiple known vulnerabilities.”
The botnet targets 18 known CVEs, some of them dating back to 2007, including:
The bot communicates exclusively over port 443, which is intentional: the traffic blends into expected HTTPS flows at the network perimeter. After gaining initial access through one of its exploit modules or via brute-forced SSH credentials, the bot runs a loader script that clears Bash history to erase evidence of the intrusion before pulling the architecture-appropriate binary from an external server.
The breadth suggests the operators are scanning opportunistically for anything unpatched rather than targeting specific organizations.
“This capability significantly increases the value of an infected host to attackers. The victim’s IP address can be used to disguise malicious traffic, bypass geographic restrictions, or provide access to internal networks through an already compromised machine.” continues the report. “In larger botnets, the same functionality could also be used to build a distributed proxy infrastructure, enabling anonymous traffic forwarding or monetization through residential and enterprise proxy services.”
Evooo1Bot stands out because of its proxy module. A network of compromised routers, cameras, and firewalls acting as SOCKS5 relays is a valuable commodity; operators can use it themselves to obscure attack traffic, or sell access to other criminals looking for residential or enterprise IP addresses that don’t trigger geographic blocks.
“Unlike typical botnet commands that focus on downloading payloads or launching attacks, the !socks module turns an infected host into a SOCKS5 proxy that the operator can use as a network relay. It supports two operating modes. In direct mode, it opens a SOCKS5 listener on the infected host on the default TCP port 1080 and waits for incoming client connections. The implementation first attempts to create a dual-stack IPv6 listener and falls back to IPv4 if that fails. Each accepted client is then passed to the session handler for proxying.” continues the report. “The botnet also implements a reverse relay mode. Instead of exposing a listening port, the bot establishes an outbound encrypted connection to an operator-specified relay server. This persistent control channel listens for commands such as RELAY_NEW:<session_id>, which indicate that a new proxy session should be created.”
After establishing C2 contact, the bot accepts commands covering the full post-compromise toolkit: file upload and download, interactive shell access, persistence installation, binary updates, HTTP Basic Auth and Cookie header interception, DDoS over DNS, TCP, and UDP, and the HTTP exploit dispatcher.
The credential sniffer intercepts authentication headers in transit, so any HTTP Basic Auth credentials passing through an infected device can be captured without any additional effort from the operator. If you’re still running devices with unpatched firmware from the CVE list above, or if any of your edge hardware is using default SSH credentials, Evooo1Bot is already scanning for you.
“Beyond traditional botnet functionality, it features encrypted C2 communications, multiple layers of string obfuscation using AES-256-CTR, ChaCha20, and XOR-based key derivation, as well as a 28-command remote administration interface.” concludes the report. “These capabilities place Evooo1Bot well beyond the technical baseline of conventional Mirai-derived malware.”
The statistics in this report are based on detection verdicts returned by Kaspersky products unless otherwise stated. The information was provided by Kaspersky users who consented to sharing statistical data.
Quarterly figures
In Q2 2026:
Kaspersky products blocked nearly 400 million attacks that originated with various online resources.
Web Anti-Virus responded to 52 million unique links.
File Anti-Virus blocked more than 16 million malicious and potentially unwanted objects.
There were 2538 new ransomware variants discovered.
More than 71,000 users experienced ransomware attacks.
15% of all ransomware victims whose data was published on threat actors’ data leak sites (DLS) were attacked by Qilin.
More than 213,000 users were targeted by miners.
Ransomware
Quarterly trends and highlights
Threat actor disruption
Microsoft has dismantled an illicit malware-signing service used by ransomware operators. Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit has shut down a malware-signing-as-a-service (MSaaS) operation run by the threat group Fox Tempest. The illicit service abused the Microsoft Artifact Signing platform to generate digital signature certificates for malicious software. Malware signed by these certificates was observed in campaigns conducted by such ransomware groups as Rhysida, Akira, INC, Qilin, and BlackByte. The service was also leveraged by operators of the Oyster loader as well as the Lumma and Vidar infostealers. To disrupt the operation, Microsoft seized the domain used by the MSaaS platform, revoked all associated certificates, and disabled the related accounts. Additionally, the company filed a lawsuit against Fox Tempest.
Vulnerabilities and attacks
CISA has confirmed that a Windows vulnerability known as BlueHammer is actively being exploited in ransomware attacks. On April 22, the agency updated its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog to note the ongoing ransomware exploitation of CVE-2026-33825. The local privilege escalation flaw in Microsoft Defender was originally disclosed earlier in April. Although Microsoft released a fix on April 14, unpatched systems remain vulnerable. CISA did not disclose further details or attribute the attacks to specific threat groups.
Check Point has linked zero-day exploitation of CVE-2026-50751 to the Qilin ransomware group. The critical vulnerability affects Check Point Remote Access VPN and Mobile Access. Attackers began exploiting the flaw as a zero-day on May 7, with activity spiking sharply in early June. While several dozen organizations have been targeted, at least one incident has been definitively tied to Qilin. Check Point also disclosed a related certificate validation flaw (CVE-2026-50752) that affects site-to-site VPN connections relying on the legacy IKEv1 key exchange protocol.
Researchers assess with high confidence that the PayoutsKing group is leveraging the legitimate QEMU emulator to deploy hidden, Alpine Linux-based virtual machines on compromised hosts. Because security solutions often lack visibility inside virtualized environments, the threat actors use this technique to evade detection. Inside the VM image, the operators deploy various tools — such as credential theft software — and configure the virtual machine as a backdoor managed via a reverse SSH tunnel to their command-and-control infrastructure. While the technique is not new, and we’ve detailed it before, it remains relatively rare in ransomware attacks.
The most prolific groups
This section highlights the most prolific ransomware gangs by number of victims added to each group’s DLS. Qilin reclaimed the top spot (accounting for 14.57% of total listings) after placing second last quarter. It is followed by the Akira ransomware (7.80%) and the DragonForce RaaS group (6.88%).
Number of each group’s victims according to its DLS as a percentage of all groups’ victims published on all the DLSs under review during the reporting period (download)
Number of new ransomware variants
In Q2, Kaspersky solutions detected four new ransomware families and 2538 new modifications. This signals a continued stabilization following spikes seen in Q1 and Q4 of last year.
Number of new ransomware modifications, Q2 2025 — Q2 2026 (download)
Number of users attacked by ransomware Trojans
Our solutions protected a total of 71,860 unique users from ransomware during Q2. Ransomware activity peaked in April, with 31,206 targeted users recorded during that month.
Number of unique users attacked by ransomware Trojans, Q2 2026 (download)
TOP 10 countries and territories attacked by ransomware Trojans
Country/territory*
%**
1
South Korea
0.87
2
Pakistan
0.76
3
China
0.71
4
Libya
0.49
5
Tajikistan
0.46
6
Turkmenistan
0.38
7
Cameroon
0.38
8
Indonesia
0.36
9
Bangladesh
0.36
10
Mozambique
0.34
* Excluded are countries and territories with relatively few (under 50,000) Kaspersky users.
** Unique users whose computers were attacked by ransomware Trojans as a percentage of all unique users of Kaspersky products in the country/territory.
* Unique Kaspersky users attacked by the specific ransomware Trojan family as a percentage of all unique users attacked by this type of threat.
Miners
Number of new miner variants
In Q2 2026, Kaspersky solutions detected 6067 new miner variants, almost twice the number for the previous reporting period.
Number of new miner modifications, Q2 2026 (download)
Number of users attacked by miners
In Q2, we detected attacks using miner programs on the computers of 213,003 unique Kaspersky users worldwide.
Number of unique users attacked by miners, Q2 2026 (download)
TOP 10 countries and territories attacked by miners
Country/territory*
%**
1
Mali
1.56
2
Senegal
1.54
3
Tanzania
1.32
4
Panama
1.04
5
Bangladesh
1.03
6
Ethiopia
0.87
7
Costa Rica
0.67
8
Bolivia
0.67
9
Côte d’Ivoire
0.65
10
Kazakhstan
0.62
* Excluded are countries and territories with relatively few (under 50,000) Kaspersky users.
** Unique users whose computers were attacked by miners as a percentage of all unique users of Kaspersky products in the country/territory.
Attacks on macOS
Quarterly highlights
In April, Aikido researchers reported a new attack by the GlassWorm stealer, which was distributed via malicious IDE extensions on the Open VSX Registry. The payload operated by installing a secondary malicious extension across all installed IDE environments on the host machine. Ultimately, this second-stage implant exfiltrated crypto wallet data, environment variables, and other secrets. It also installed a RAT on the infected device.
In May, Socket researchers uncovered a supply chain compromise involving the popular npm package art-template. As a result of the breach, the weaponized package injected the Coruna exploit kit into web applications it was used to build. Coruna targets iOS devices.
In June, Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 discovered FlutterShell, a new backdoor family that targets macOS devices. Developed with the Flutter framework, the malware leverages the WebView engine to load web pages that contain malicious JavaScript. On the client side, the backdoor registers bridge functions invoked by the loaded JavaScript that allow threat actors to execute arbitrary payloads on the victim’s device. Notably, the malicious applications successfully passed Apple notarization. Although the specific samples analyzed functioned primarily as adware, the underlying architecture permits the delivery of far more sophisticated malicious payloads.
TOP 20 threats to macOS
* Unique users who encountered this malware as a percentage of all attacked users of Kaspersky security solutions for macOS (download)
* Data for the previous quarter may differ slightly from previously published data due to some verdicts being retrospectively revised.
Detections of PasivRobber spyware continued their downward trend. Meanwhile, adware and traffic-routing utilities (categorized as NetTool) rose to the top of the rankings. Additionally, Q2 saw a noticeable spike in detections for the DirtyCow exploit frequently leveraged for iPhone jailbreaking.
TOP 10 countries and territories by share of attacked users
Country/territory
%* Q1 2026
%* Q2 2026
Brazil
1.13
1.13
China
1.04
1.28
Hong Kong
0.92
0.49
Singapore
0.85
0.19
France
0.62
1.18
Mexico
0.43
0.72
India
0.41
0.42
Thailand
0.40
0.24
Germany
0.33
0.71
The Netherlands
0.31
0.62
* Unique users who encountered threats to macOS as a percentage of all unique Kaspersky users in the country/territory.
IoT threat statistics
This section presents statistics on attacks targeting Kaspersky IoT honeypots. The geographic data on attack sources is based on the IP addresses of attacking devices.
In Q2 2026, the breakdown of attacking devices and sessions that targeted Kaspersky honeypots by protocol was as follows:
Distribution of attacked services by number of unique IP addresses of attacking devices (download)
The share of SSH attacks saw a slight uptick compared to the previous quarter.
Distribution of cybercriminal sessions in Kaspersky honeypots (download)
TOP 10 threats delivered to IoT devices
Share of each threat delivered to an infected device as a result of a successful attack, out of the total number of threats delivered (download)
As is typically the case, Mirai botnet variants continue to dominate the IoT threat landscape. Activity of another prominent botnet, Prometei, also saw an increase.
Attacks on IoT honeypots
the Netherlands, Germany, and The United States accounted for the highest proportions of SSH-based attacks during this period. While the top three countries remained the same as last quarter, their relative rankings shifted.
Country/territory
Q1 2026
Q2 2026
The Netherlands
17.57%
21.18%
Germany
10.34%
16.73%
United States
23.74%
6.76%
Bulgaria
1.10%
5.50%
Sweden
2.09%
4.93%
Panama
6.34%
4.67%
Luxembourg
0.16%
4.62%
Romania
5.82%
4.06%
Vietnam
3.50%
3.91%
India
6.05%
2.78%
The percentage of Telnet-based attacks originating from Pakistan continued to climb, knocking China down to second place.
Country/territory
Q1 2026
Q2 2026
Pakistan
27.31%
36.60%
China
39.54%
35.62%
Russian Federation
8.25%
8.75%
India
4.66%
4.19%
Brazil
3.30%
3.34%
United States
0.45%
3.03%
Indonesia
6.71%
1.52%
Philippines
0.36%
0.95%
France
0.17%
0.84%
Thailand
0.55%
0.66%
Attacks via web resources
The statistics in this section are based on detection verdicts by Web Anti-Virus, which protects users when suspicious objects are downloaded from malicious or infected web pages. These malicious pages are purposefully created by cybercriminals. Websites that host user-generated content, such as message boards, as well as compromised legitimate sites, can become infected.
TOP 10 countries and territories that served as sources of web-based attacks
The following statistics show the distribution by country/territory of the sources of internet attacks blocked by Kaspersky products on user computers (web pages redirecting to exploits, sites containing exploits and other malware, botnet C&C centers, and so on). One or more web-based attacks could originate from each unique host.
To determine the geographic source of web attacks, we matched the domain name with the real IP address where the domain is hosted, then identified the geographic location of that IP address (GeoIP).
In Q2 2026, Kaspersky solutions blocked 399,312,961 attacks launched from internet resources worldwide. Web Anti-Virus was triggered by 52,850,592 unique URLs.
Web-based attacks by country/territory, Q1 2026 (download)
Countries and territories where users faced the greatest risk of online infection
To assess the risk of malware infection via the internet for users’ computers in different countries and territories, we calculated the share of Kaspersky users in each location on whose computers Web Anti-Virus was triggered during the reporting period. The resulting data provides an indication of the aggressiveness of the environment in which computers operate in different countries and territories.
This ranked list includes only attacks by malicious objects classified as Malware. Our calculations leave out Web Anti-Virus detections of potentially dangerous or unwanted programs, such as RiskTool or adware.
Country/territory*
%**
1
Bangladesh
11.71
2
India
7.40
3
Tajikistan
7.13
4
Venezuela
7.05
5
New Zealand
6.58
6
Vietnam
6.34
7
Taiwan
6.28
8
Belgium
6.24
9
France
5.97
10
Hungary
5.92
11
Nepal
5.91
12
Portugal
5.86
13
Italy
5.77
14
Costa Rica
5.72
15
Canada
5.65
16
Qatar
5.61
17
Dominican Republic
5.52
18
Palestine
5.48
19
Greece
5.47
20
UAE
5.43
* Excluded are countries and territories with relatively few (under 10,000) Kaspersky product users.
** Unique users targeted by web-based Malware attacks as a percentage of all unique users of Kaspersky products in the country/territory.
On average during the quarter, 4.54% of users’ computers worldwide were subjected to at least one Malware web attack.
Local threats
Statistics on local infections of user computers are an important indicator. They include objects that penetrated the target computer by infecting files or removable media, or initially made their way onto the computer in non-open form. Examples of the latter are programs in complex installers and encrypted files.
Data in this section is based on analyzing statistics produced by anti-virus scans of files on the hard drive at the moment they were created or accessed, and the results of scanning removable storage media. The statistics are based on detection verdicts from the On-Access Scan (OAS) and On-Demand Scan (ODS) modules of File Anti-Virus and include detections of malicious programs located on user computers or removable media connected to the computers, such as flash drives, camera memory cards, phones, or external hard drives.
In Q2 2026, our File Anti-Virus detected 16,986,351 malicious and potentially unwanted objects.
Countries and territories where users faced the highest risk of local infection
For each country and territory, we calculated the percentage of Kaspersky users whose computers had the File Anti-Virus triggered at least once during the reporting period. These statistics reflect the level of personal computer infection in different countries.
Note that this ranked list includes only attacks by malicious objects classified as Malware. Our calculations leave out File Anti-Virus detections of potentially dangerous or unwanted programs, such as RiskTool or adware.
Country/territory*
%**
1
Turkmenistan
46.38
2
Cuba
29.70
3
Tajikistan
28.46
4
Afghanistan
28.19
5
Yemen
27.85
6
Burundi
26.82
7
Mozambique
25.01
8
Republic of the Congo
24.88
9
Syria
23.17
10
Uzbekistan
22.49
11
China
21.92
12
Nicaragua
21.60
13
Cameroon
21.47
14
Bangladesh
20.43
15
Democratic Republic of the Congo
20.25
16
Algeria
19.78
17
Uganda
19.48
18
Ethiopia
18.57
19
Tanzania
18.54
20
Mali
18.53
* Excluded are countries and territories with relatively few (under 10,000) Kaspersky users.
** Unique users on whose computers Malware local threats were blocked, as a percentage of all unique users of Kaspersky products in the country/territory.
On average worldwide, Malware local threats were detected at least once on 10.93% of users’ computers during Q2.
Content In the second quarter of 2026, the AhnLab SEcurity intelligence Center (ASEC) collected and analyzed attack logs targeting poorly managed Linux SSH servers through honeypots. The scope of the analysis covers attack sources that progressed to executing actual malware installation commands, as well as statistics on the malware used in those attacks. Purpose and […]
A Brazilian tech firm that specializes in protecting networks from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks has been enabling a botnet responsible for an extended campaign of massive DDoS attacks against other network operators in Brazil, KrebsOnSecurity has learned. The firm’s chief executive says the malicious activity resulted from a security breach and was likely the work of a competitor trying to tarnish his company’s public image.
An Archer AX21 router from TP-Link. Image: tp-link.com.
For the past several years, security experts have tracked a series of massive DDoS attacks originating from Brazil and solely targeting Brazilian ISPs. Until recently, it was less than clear who or what was behind these digital sieges. That changed earlier this month when a trusted source who asked to remain anonymous shared a curious file archive that was exposed in an open directory online.
The exposed archive contained several Portuguese-language malicious programs written in Python. It also included the private SSH authentication keys belonging to the CEO of Huge Networks, a Brazilian ISP that primarily offers DDoS protection to other Brazilian network operators.
Founded in Miami, Fla. in 2014, Huge Networks’s operations are centered in Brazil. The company originated from protecting game servers against DDoS attacks and evolved into an ISP-focused DDoS mitigation provider. It does not appear in any public abuse complaints and is not associated with any known DDoS-for-hire services.
Nevertheless, the exposed archive shows that a Brazil-based threat actor maintained root access to Huge Networks infrastructure and built a powerful DDoS botnet by routinely mass-scanning the Internet for insecure Internet routers and unmanaged domain name system (DNS) servers on the Web that could be enlisted in attacks.
DNS is what allows Internet users to reach websites by typing familiar domain names instead of the associated IP addresses. Ideally, DNS servers only provide answers to machines within a trusted domain. But so-called “DNS reflection” attacks rely on DNS servers that are (mis)configured to accept queries from anywhere on the Web. Attackers can send spoofed DNS queries to these servers so that the request appears to come from the target’s network. That way, when the DNS servers respond, they reply to the spoofed (targeted) address.
By taking advantage of an extension to the DNS protocol that enables large DNS messages, botmasters can dramatically boost the size and impact of a reflection attack — crafting DNS queries so that the responses are much bigger than the requests. For example, an attacker could compose a DNS request of less than 100 bytes, prompting a response that is 60-70 times as large. This amplification effect is especially pronounced when the perpetrators can query many DNS servers with these spoofed requests from tens of thousands of compromised devices simultaneously.
A DNS amplification and reflection attack, illustrated. Image: veracara.digicert.com.
The exposed file archive includes a command-line history showing exactly how this attacker built and maintained a powerful botnet by scouring the Internet for TP-Link Archer AX21 routers. Specifically, the botnet seeks out TP-Link devices that remain vulnerable to CVE-2023-1389, an unauthenticated command injection vulnerability that was patched back in April 2023.
Malicious domains in the exposed Python attack scripts included DNS lookups for hikylover[.]st, and c.loyaltyservices[.]lol, both domains that have been flagged in the past year as control servers for an Internet of Things (IoT) botnet powered by a Mirai malware variant.
The leaked archive shows the botmaster coordinated their scanning from a Digital Ocean server that has been flagged for abusive activity hundreds of times in the past year. The Python scripts invoke multiple Internet addresses assigned to Huge Networks that were used to identify targets and execute DDoS campaigns. The attacks were strictly limited to Brazilian IP address ranges, and the scripts show that each selected IP address prefix was attacked for 10-60 seconds with four parallel processes per host before the botnet moved on to the next target.
The archive also shows these malicious Python scripts relied on private SSH keys belonging to Huge Networks’s CEO, Erick Nascimento. Reached for comment about the files, Mr. Nascimento said he did not write the attack programs and that he didn’t realize the extent of the DDoS campaigns until contacted by KrebsOnSecurity.
“We received and notified many Tier 1 upstreams regarding very very large DDoS attacks against small ISPs,” Nascimento said. “We didn’t dig deep enough at the time, and what you sent makes that clear.”
Nascimento said the unauthorized activity is likely related to a digital intrusion first detected in January 2026 that compromised two of the company’s development servers, as well as his personal SSH keys. But he said there’s no evidence those keys were used after January.
“We notified the team in writing the same day, wiped the boxes, and rotated keys,” Nascimento said, sharing a screenshot of a January 11 notification from Digital Ocean. “All documented internally.”
Mr. Nascimento said Huge Networks has since engaged a third-party network forensics firm to investigate further.
“Our working assessment so far is that this all started with a single internal compromise — one pivot point that gave the attacker downstream access to some resources, including a legacy personal droplet of mine,” he wrote.
“The compromise happened through a bastion/jump server that several people had access to,” Nascimento continued. “Digital Ocean flagged the droplet on January 11 — compromised due to a leaked SSH key, in their wording — I was traveling at the time and addressed it on return. That droplet was deprecated and destroyed, and it was never part of Huge Networks infrastructure.”
The malicious software that powers the botnet of TP-Link devices used in the DDoS attacks on Brazilian ISPs is based on Mirai, a malware strain that made its public debut in September 2016 by launching a then record-smashing DDoS attack that kept this website offline for four days. In January 2017, KrebsOnSecurity identified the Mirai authors as the co-owners of a DDoS mitigation firm that was using the botnet to attack gaming servers and scare up new clients.
In May 2025, KrebsOnSecurity was hit by another Mirai-based DDoS that Google called the largest attack it had ever mitigated. That report implicated a 20-something Brazilian man who was running a DDoS mitigation company as well as several DDoS-for-hire services that have since been seized by the FBI.
Nascimento flatly denied being involved in DDoS attacks against Brazilian operators to generate business for his company’s services.
“We don’t run DDoS attacks against Brazilian operators to sell protection,” Nascimento wrote in response to questions. “Our sales model is mostly inbound and through channel integrator, distributors, partners — not active prospecting based on market incidents. The targets in the scripts you received are small regional providers, the vast majority of which are neither in our customer base nor in our commercial pipeline — a fact verifiable through public sources like QRator.”
Nascimento maintains he has “strong evidence stored on the blockchain” that this was all done by a competitor. As for who that competitor might be, the CEO wouldn’t say.
“I would love to share this with you, but it could not be published as it would lose the surprise factor against my dishonest competitor,” he explained. “Coincidentally or not, your contact happened a week before an important event – one that this competitor has NEVER participated in (and it’s a traditional event in the sector). And this year, they will be participating. Strange, isn’t it?”
Cybersecurity researchers at Fortinet have discovered Nexcorium, a new Mirai-based malware targeting TBK DVR systems to turn them into a botnet for DDoS attacks.
Overview. ASEC analyzed the statistics of attacks against Linux SSH servers in Q1 2026 based on honeypot logs. The P2PInfect worm dominated, accounting for 70.3% of all attack sources, and DDoS bots such as Mirai, XMRig, Prometei, and CoinMiner were identified as the main threats. Purpose and Scope. the purpose of this report is to […]
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