Tech Firms Dismantle Botnet That Turned 1.3M TV Boxes Into Proxies
Google said today it worked with industry partners to dismantle a botnet made up of more than 1.3 million Android TV set-top boxes that ship with…
Why am I seeing this Ranked on source trust — Krebs on Security
It ranks mainly on source trust: Krebs on Security is the most reliable outlet we track on this subject, and is the only one on the story so far.
Single-sourced. No second organisation has confirmed it yet.
Link-outLink-out, because only one organisation carries it and no first-party source is on it. Link-out means we point at the publisher and say nothing of our own.
| Factor | Weight | Score | Contribution | Where it came from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corroboration | 0.35 | 0.39 | +0.135 25% | 1 independent org on the story. Tier-3 aggregators never corroborate — they can show something is circulating, never that it is true. |
| Source trustleads | 0.25 | 0.85 | +0.212 39% | Krebs on Security is the highest-trust source on this story. Trust is taken from the best source, not averaged. |
| Pickup rate | 0.20 | 0.00 | +0.000 0% | One counted organisation, so there is no spread to measure — nothing has picked this up to set a rate. |
| Freshness | 0.20 | 0.99 | +0.199 36% | Halves every 10 hours from the newest item on the story. This is the only factor that rewards a story for nothing more than being recent. |
Corroboration counts distinct organisations, once each, and only from tiers 1 and 2. Freshness halves every 10 hours, so this ranking is a snapshot and will differ at the next build.
What happened
Google said today it worked with industry partners to dismantle a botnet made up of more than 1.3 million Android TV set-top boxes that ship with malicious software which secretly rents the user's Internet connection out to strangers and conducts advertising fraud. Experts involved in the takedown say the action is likely to sever the botnet's access to more than 10 million additional compromised systems, including other Internet of Things (IoT) products such as Android-based healthcare devices and karaoke machines.
How this story arrived
Ordered by when each source was first observed, which is what the velocity figure is computed from. Publishers backdate; observed order does not.
- 01 Krebsonsecurity first seen Tech Firms Dismantle Botnet That Turned 1.3M TV Boxes Into Proxies
Overclock clusters coverage from independent sources and grades it automatically. The figures above are computed, not editorial. This page summarises and links to reporting by the outlets named — follow the links for the original work.