Threats Tagged 'iot'

Kimwolf v7 is a botnet targeting Android IoT devices. It employs HTTP/2 DDoS fingerprinting techniques, uses Ethereum ENS for command and control resolution, and incorporates Tor for backup routing. This evolution of the Kimwolf botnet enhances its resilience and evasion capabilities. There is no indication of known exploits in the wild at this time. The threat focuses on distributed denial-of-service attacks leveraging compromised IoT devices.

Security experts have been sounding the alarm for years about the risks of using generic TV boxes that promise unlimited content streaming for a one-time fee, warning that they secretly rent the user’s Internet connection out to strangers. But a groundbreaking new analysis finds these devices also routinely spoof themselves as mobile phones clicking ads on AI-generated websites as part of a sprawling operation that seeks to defraud online merchants and advertising networks. Pedro Falé is a threat researcher with the security firm Bitsight . Falé told KrebsOnSecurity he was able to peer inside a vast and complex ad fraud network by registering an expired domain name that was used to coordinate fake ad clicks across a particularly popular brand of these streaming devices known as H96 . An H96 TV streaming device currently advertised for sale on Amazon. Falé said the domain he scooped up was previously used for telemetry, periodically collecting full hardware information and the entire list of installed apps from tens of thousands of H96 streaming sticks plugged into television sets around the globe. But upon inspecting the traffic being funneled to the domain, he discovered nearly all of the TV boxes transmitting data claimed to be mobile phone models from a variety of manufacturers, including Samsung, Vivo, Huawei, and Xiaomi. “We noticed something was wildly wrong,” Falé said. “Multiple devices reporting to this factory Android TV Box backdoor were ‘phones.'” Image: Bitsight. The researcher found all of the devices reported having the same two apps installed, and that those apps were made by a company called Zhejiang Fengwo IoT Technology Ltd , an entity founded in 2019 in mainland China which operates an ad-publishing portfolio under the name Fengwo Group . Further investigation into the Fengwo Group revealed it has registered multiple patents that match the inner workings of these apps. “Bitsight TRACE identified several Hong Kong, Singapore, and single person ‘legal’ shell identities used to collect the monetization and traced the operation back to a mainland China company known as Zhejiang Fengwo IoT Technology Co., Ltd, which operates under the Fengwo Group,” Falé wrote in a report released today about their findings. Falé said an analysis of the apps shows they help to coordinate an ad fraud network that uses these H96 devices as a captive traffic source to click on ads at AI-generated websites operated by the Fengwo Group. Bitsight discovered the websites contain machine-generated news articles and graphics across a range of categories, including finance, health, education, gaming, music and food blogs. But they also found none of those sites displayed ads unless the device visiting the page matched the spoofed mobile profile of these H96 devices. AI DIGITAL HUMANS The domain for the Fengwo Group — fwgcloud[.]com — claims the company is “redefining the boundaries of human-AI interaction,” and that it has created more than 120,000 “AI digital humans” available to rent for everything from emotional companionship to 24/7 customer service and creative design. The homepage for fwgcloud dot com. Falé said the Fengwo Group’s domain shared its SSL certificate data with other domains associated with the apps found on H96 devices, specifically the phone spoofing mechanism. He noted the domain also has an internal wiki platform that directly ties the Fengwo Group to a proprietary implementation of a Google-built visual programming language called Blockly , which was originally designed to help kids learn how to write software. According to Bitsight, the Fengwo Group’s employees use Blockly to build the sham websites, allowing low-skilled operators to drag blocks of code together in their Blockly editor — without any need to understand what the underlying code blocks do or how they work. The Blockly homepage. “An operator can drag blocks together in their Blockly editor, to define each fraud routine, given a task type,” reads Bitsi…

Canada’s new Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act (Bill C-8) introduces a strict 72-hour cyber incident reporting mandate. Find out how Tenable is helping critical national infrastructure operators bridge the IT/OT divide to ensure full compliance. Key takeaways: Bill C-8 introduces stringent new cyber incident reporting requirements and heavy financial penalties for critical infrastructure operators. Eliminating network blind spots with a hybrid IT/OT discovery approach, including Safe Active Querying for isolated, hard-to-reach process-control systems, enables operators to establish a required security baseline. Predictive Vulnerability Priority Rating (VPR) scoring helps you prioritize and focus limited resources on the critical flaws that actually threaten physical safety and uptime. Advanced multi-detection engines and seamless IT workflow integrations accelerate mean-time-to-respond (MTTR) to help both security teams and operators align with a strict 72-hour reporting requirement. With the enactment of Canada’s Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act (CCSPA), commonly known as Bill C-8, the Canadian federal government is laying down a clear framework to protect the cyber-physical systems that are vital to national critical infrastructure security. For designated operators in telecommunications, energy, transportation, and banking, the mandate is clear: Establish formalized cybersecurity programs, mitigate supply chain risks, and — most critically — report cyber incidents to authorities within 72 hours. Failure to comply carries heavy consequences, including penalties that can reach up to $15 million Canadian dollars (CAD). But beyond the threat of fines, Bill C-8 highlights a fundamental operational challenge that many industrial organizations are still struggling to solve: How can you detect, investigate, and report a breach in 72 hours when you lack unified visibility across your converged IT and OT environments? Requirements for meeting Bill C-8's 72-hour incident reporting mandate In modern industrial operations and critical infrastructure, the line between IT and OT continues to blur. The introduction of connectivity (e.g., IoT-connected cameras and building management systems) has optimized processes and service delivery, but it has also introduced new cyber exposures. Today, threat actors do not honor traditional network silos; they frequently compromise a web-facing IT asset or IoT device and move laterally into the operational technology (OT) environment to disrupt physical processes. Meeting a 72-hour incident reporting window is nearly impossible if your security team is relying on fragmented point solutions. Solutions that focus exclusively on passive OT network monitoring often leave massive blind spots — especially considering that IT and IoT devices can constitute up to 50% of an industrial environment. When an incident occurs, teams waste precious hours manually correlating alerts across disconnected tools rather than actively investigating the root cause. To comply with CCSPA and protect uptime, critical national infrastructure (CNI) operators must bridge the IT/OT security divide. Establish your CCSPA cybersecurity baseline The CCSPA requires operators to implement formalized cybersecurity programs. The foundation of any mature security program is a comprehensive asset inventory — you cannot secure what you cannot see. The Tenable One Exposure Management Platform helps organizations eliminate security blind spots by building a complete, unified inventory of all OT, IoT, and IT assets. Tenable goes beyond passive-only network monitoring with our proprietary Safe Active Query technology. This hybrid approach safely communicates with industrial devices in their native protocols to uncover significantly more assets than passive monitoring alone — including dormant process control systems, shadow IT, and unmanaged IoT — without disrupting process integrity or impacting equipment uptime. Prioritize what matter…

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Overview Firmware versions 2.7.7 and earlier of the Arris BGW210-700 residential gateway contain an authentication bypass vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-16771, that allows any unauthenticated LAN-side user to read sensitive configuration data and modify device settings through web management endpoints. Although this vulnerability was recently discovered, the majority of in-service gateways are not expected to be running the affected version. Only devices that have not received automated ISP-managed firmware updates since version 2.7.7 in 2020 are vulnerable. Description The Arris BGW210-700 is a residential gateway used widely in AT&T deployments to provide routing, wireless networking, and wide-area network (WAN) connectivity for home users. The device exposes a browser-based management interface on the local-area network (LAN) side that allows users to configure WiFi settings, check diagnostics, and run system operations. Several CGI (Common Gateway Interface) handlers within the BGW210-700's web interface do not enforce any server-side authentication checks. Although the interface presents an "Access Code" prompt to users, this restriction is entirely implemented through client-side HTML and JavaScript and is not validated by the server before processing requests. As a result, any HTTP client that ignores client-side code can directly access and interact with the underlying CGI endpoints. The lack of server-side authentication affects multiple configuration and diagnostic pages. The wconfig_unified.ha endpoint returns the plaintext WiFi pre-shared key for all configured SSIDs to any unauthenticated requester. The broadbandconfig.ha endpoint accepts unauthenticated POST requests that directly modify WAN configuration parameters, including settings that persist across device reboots. Additional diagnostic endpoints, such as diag.ha , allow unauthenticated triggering of backend diagnostic jobs. Impact This vulnerability allows any unauthenticated user on the LAN, including devices connected to the gateway through the main WiFi network, Guest WiFi network, or LAN ethernet, to read sensitive configuration information and make persistent changes to gateway settings. A local attacker can retrieve the network's plaintext WiFi password with a single HTTP request and achieve unauthorized access to manipulate, intrude on, and interfere with protected networks. Solution This gateway is ISP-managed, so all standard internet-connected devices are expected to have been automatically updated to newer unaffected versions. Users can determine their active version by checking their router's diagnostic settings via web browser, and optionally contact their ISP to confirm that automatic updates are functioning correctly. Because the vulnerability is limited to the LAN-side management interface, standard network hygiene practices such as isolating untrusted devices, keeping IoT systems updated, and monitoring for the presence of unknown clients can further reduce risk in environments where older firmware may still be present. Acknowledgements Thanks to David Weekly for researching and reporting this vulnerability. This document was written by Molly Jaconski. Vendor Information One or more vendors are listed for this advisory. Please reference the full report for more information. Other Information CVE IDs: CVE-2026-16771 Date Public: 2026-07-28 Date First Published: 2026-07-28 Date Last Updated: 2026-07-28 18:43 UTC Document Revision: 3 About vulnerability notes Contact us about this vulnerability Provide a vendor statement