The US says it disrupted the Aisuru botnet, notorious for launching record-breaking DDoS attacks throughout last year in an effort to shut down internet services and websites.
The US partnered with Canada and Germany to crack down on a total of four botnets, including Aisuru and its spin-off botnet Kimwolf, which security researchers suspect belong to the same creators.
Aisuru and Kimwolf work by first infecting vulnerable online devices, enslaving them into a network of hijacked computers. Hackers can then use the army of infected computers to launch DDoS attacks, which involve summoning waves of internet traffic to overwhelm a website, app or IP address to try and take them offline.
Made up of infected IoT devices, digital video recorders, and even virtual machines, Aisuru has been grabbing headlines for launching DDoS assaults reaching as high as 30Tbps, shattering the previous records. In December, security researchers also spotted evidence that the creators of Aisuru were behind a new botnet called Kimwolf that’s been hijacking Android TV boxes.
“Together, Aisuru and Kimwolf comprise an estimated 1-4 million infected hosts,” internet infrastructure provider Cloudflare says. Although the leading DDoS protection providers have been able to shrug off the DDoSS attacks, the botnets’ activities have still been disruptive to ISPs and gaming providers.
“Many webservers and websites pay for incoming data. So even a one-minute attack at 1Terabit/s could cost a victim hundreds or thousands of dollars in fees from their Internet or hosting provider,” a federal investigator told the court for the seizure warrant.
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In response, the US’s operation focused on shutting down the internet infrastructure that the hackers have been using to send commands to the botnets. This included “preventing further infection to victim devices and limiting or eliminating the ability of the botnets to launch future attacks,” the Justice Department said.
To do so, law enforcement executed seizure warrants to take over “multiple” US-registered internet domains and virtual servers. The announcement also noted: “Law enforcement agencies from Canada and Germany conducted their own operations targeting botnet administrators and botnet infrastructure,” suggesting Aisuru’s creators may have been nabbed. The cybersecurity journalist Brian Krebs previously identified a 22-year-old Canadian man as the main operator of the Kimwolf botnet, and noted that “the other prime suspect is a 15-year-old living in Germany.”
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The US also went after the JackSkid and Mossad Internet of Things botnets, responsible for their own share of DDoS attacks. The Justice Department adds: “According to court documents, the four botnets targeted in the operation together infected millions of devices worldwide. The majority of these devices were IoT devices, such as digital video recorders, web cameras, or WiFi routers.”
The hackers behind the botnets then sold access to cybercriminals, resulting in hundreds of thousands of DDoS attacks that could also try to extort victims. “As of March 2026, the number of infected devices hijacked worldwide by the botnet administrators exceeded three million, with hundreds of thousands of infected devices located in the United States,” the Justice Department said.
“Aisuru botnet issued more than 200,000 DDoS attack commands, the Kimwolf botnet issued more than 25,000 DDoS attack commands, the JackSkid botnet launched more than 90,000 DDoS attack commands and the Mossad botnet launched more than 1,000 DDoS attack commands,” the announcement added. A court document notes that security researchers discovered the JackSkid and Mossad botnets in late 2025 or early 2026.
About Our Expert
Michael Kan
Senior Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. Earlier this year, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how President Trump’s tariffs will affect the industry. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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