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Your ‘free’ VPN may actually be a malware bot

Posted on June 10, 2024 at 02:45 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

ISSUE 21.24 • 2024-06-10

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

Law-enforcement authorities, coordinating the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and similar agencies in Germany, Singapore, and Thailand, have arrested the leaders of a worldwide botnet that relied on people downloading and installing software to create “free” virtual private networks (VPNs).

Before the arrests were announced on May 29, 2024, more than 19 million infected computers in some 190 countries were being used by hackers for credit-card fraud, Dark Web operations, and a lot else. Jailing the so-called 911 S5 organizers and shutting them down dismantled what FBI director Christopher Wray described as “likely the world’s largest botnet ever.”

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.24.0, 2024-06-10).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

Public Defender AVG Secure, botnet, CyberGhost, DewVPN, ExpressVPN, Hotspot Shield, IVPN, MaskVPN, Mullvad, Newsletters, NordVPN, PAirVPN, PaladinVPN, PersonalVPN, Private Internet Access, ProtonVPN, ProxyGate, Security, ShieldVPN, ShineVPN, Surfshark, VPNs, Windscribe Pro

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