Botnet of more than 17 million devices dismantled

# Botnet of more than 17 million devices dismantled Source: [https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/botnet-of-more-than-17-million-devices-dismantled/](https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/05/botnet-of-more-than-17-million-devices-dismantled/) Authorities in the Netherlands said they dismantled a botnet that comprised more than 17 million devices and were managed by 200 servers in a joint operation by the police and the National Cyber Security Center\. The action,[announced Thursday](https://www.ncsc.nl/nieuws/gezamenlijke-actie-politie-en-ncsc-legt-groot-botnetwerk-plat), came about after a security researcher reported the sprawling network to authorities\. The host infrastructure was located in the Netherlands\. ## Used for criminal purposes “The police then seized several botnet servers from a hosting provider for investigation,” the NCSC said\. “The botnet was taken offline by the provider because it was used for criminal purposes\.” According to a[report](https://nltimes.nl/2026/05/28/ncsc-dutch-police-disrupt-global-botnet-controlled-via-netherlands-based-servers)Thursday by the NL Times, the botnet was linked to ASOCKS, a Russia\-based company that provides residential proxy services\. These services cater to people and organizations who want to obscure their locations or identities by proxying their Internet traffic through third\-party devices\. Proxy services are often used for illicit or unethical purposes such as performing DDoS attacks, running botnet command\-and\-control servers, operating phishing operations, and scraping website content\. Ars was unable to independently confirm the NL Times report, but the claim checks out\. Thursday’s NCSC post linked to a[separate post](https://www.ncsc.nl/expertblogs/residential-proxies-en-hun-grote-impact-op-de-digitale-veiligheid-in-nederland)that the nonprofit organization published a day earlier\. That post, in turn, was updated to add a link to Thursday’s post\. Wednesday’s post, headlined “Residential proxies and their major impact on digital security in the Netherlands,” warned: “Residential proxies are used to maintain anonymity and circumvent geographical restrictions\. In this way, a Dutch organization can be attacked with Dutch proxies that have similarities with ‘regular’ traffic, making cybercrime mitigation more difficult\.”