Re: ISP Operators AISURU/Kimwolf botnet

[Mel Beckman via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>]

Suresh,

Aye, there’s the rub. It’s very difficult to classify DDoS traffic at the ASN level unless you can see it across ASNs 
on the Internet backbone, then and correlate it using sophisticated pattern recognition. This what services such as 
Black Lotus, CloudFlare, and Fastlick do. Especially for small ISPs, this is impossible to do in-house, at least today 
anyway. Hackers quickly learn how all these DDoS recognition services work, so it’s a constant battle or whack-a-mole 
trying to stay ahead of them and their information hiding techniques.

There are CPE devices — NG enterprise firewalls — that can detect and block some large output streams. But customers 
aren’t willing to pay a $2000 setup fee and turn over the shelf space and endure the noise footprint for these products.

But you’re right about one thing: ISPs, where they can identify abusive outbound traffic, can turn off those customers 
and leave it to them clean up their home networks.

 -mel

On Jan 17, 2026, at 5:50 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian <ops.lists () gmail com> wrote:


Write it and submit it to the NYT and that crowd would just call it mass media lies.  Whatever happened to all the 
walled gardens Comcast and others were working on?

If you see this traffic just cut the connection based on the customer bumming free tv with a knockoff Chinese device, 
if not for the malware.

--srs
________________________________
From: Mel Beckman via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org>
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2026 9:41:54 AM
To: Tim Burke <tim () mid net>
Cc: nanog () lists nanog org <nanog () lists nanog org>; Corey Smith <cosmith80001 () gmail com>; Roland Dobbins 
<Roland.Dobbins () netscout com>; Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org>
Subject: Re: ISP Operators AISURU/Kimwolf botnet

You should write the article and submit it to the New York Times technology group. I believe David Pogue still works 
there, and he is a tech guy, so maybe he would be a good vehicle to get it published. I used to work with DAVID at 
Macworld magazine.

But it’s not the job for an ISP, or even something an ISP could get the major media to publish.

-mel via cell

> On Jan 17, 2026, at 4:50 PM, Tim Burke <tim () mid net> wrote:
>
> The problem I see is that an article like this is intended for an IT/security professional audience.
>
> These TV piracy boxes are often used by uneducated folks that would not read such an article. They just want their 
> sports and $cableNewsChannel, and if you tell them it’s illegal or full of malware, they will just tell you you’re 
> wrong, keep using it, and let it cause their 1Gbps circuit to get saturated by botnet traffic, all in the name of 
> “free television”.
>
> I have joined a few social media groups about these devices out of sheer curiosity, and have seen a number of threads 
> from folks that ask why an ISPs security offering (typically Comcast’s “XFi Security” or AT&T’s “Active Armor”) would 
> be complaining about traffic coming from the device… the common trend is to tell people to disable the security 
> services, as “Infinity [SIC] is just trying to force you to buy their cable”.
>
> Hooray for Stockholm syndrome.
>
> > On Jan 16, 2026, at 20:10, Mel Beckman via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> >
> > Roland,
> >
> > The Krebs article you cite is even better than the one I linked, because it shows pictures of the many consumer 
> > devices that can be infiltrated. People are likely to immediately recognize any they own, which will drive home the 
> > point that this is their problem.
> >
> > -mel
> >
> > > > On Jan 16, 2026, at 5:43 PM, Dobbins, Roland via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> > >
> > > 
> > > > On Jan 16, 2026, at 22:16, Benjamin Hatton via NANOG <nanog () lists nanog org> wrote:
> > >
> > > As a smaller ISP, I think the biggest thing that would help us would be a
> > > 'mainstream' media outlet covering some of it so we have something to show
> > > customers who call in about their internet being bad, us telling them it is
> > > their android streaming box that is taking up their entire connection
> > > moving TBs of data a day, and them responding with "but I bought it from
> > > Walmart/Amazon" or "you are just trying to get me to sign up for your
> > > cable" and refusing to do anything about it because 'free TV'.
> > >
> > > <https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/>
> > > The Kimwolf Botnet is Stalking Your Local 
> > > Network<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/>
> > > krebsonsecurity.com<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/>
> > > [favicon.ico]<https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/01/the-kimwolf-botnet-is-stalking-your-local-network/>
> > >
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