SystemBC-Powered REM Proxy Botnet: 1,500 VPSs Compromised Daily in 2025
In mid-2025, cybersecurity researchers from Lumen's Black Lotus Labs identified a large-scale proxy botnet operation named REM Proxy, powered primarily by the SystemBC malware. Attackers leveraged SystemBC to compromise over 1,500 virtual private servers (VPS) daily, utilizing them to fuel a criminal proxy-as-a-service spanning 80 command-and-control (C2) servers. The network enabled threat actors to anonymize malicious activities and included access to approximately 20,000 vulnerable Mikrotik routers and additional open proxies. This infrastructure facilitated evasion, lateral movement, and widespread malicious activity with significant security implications for targeted and intermediary organizations. This incident underscores the ongoing evolution of proxy botnets and malware-as-a-service ecosystems, which pose critical risks for organizations across various sectors. As the boundaries between cybercrime infrastructure and legitimate cloud assets blur, defenders must place renewed emphasis on advanced threat detection, network segmentation, and zero trust principles to mitigate similar emergent threats.
Kill Chain