US sanctions operators of “free VPN” that routed crime traffic through user PCs

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Submitted ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨BrikoX@lemmy.zip⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.zip⁩

https://arstechnica.com/security/2024/05/us-sanctions-operators-of-free-vpn-that-routed-crime-traffic-through-user-pcs/

911 S5 residential proxy service was comprised of 19 million IP addresses.

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eskimofry@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Missed the most pertinent info in your title and post body:

In 2022, researchers at the University of Sherbrooke profiled 911[.]re, a service that appears to be an earlier version of 911 S5. At the time, its infrastructure comprised 120,000 residential IP addresses. This pool was created using one of two free VPNs—MaskVPN and DewVPN—marketed to end users. Besides acting as a legitimate VPN, the software also operated as a botnet that covertly turned users’ devices into a proxy server. The complex structure was designed with the intent of making the botnet hard to reverse engineer.

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