“Everybody is looking for an alternative, bro,” wrote a BlackHatForums user on Aug. The consensus seems to be that those days are now over, and while there are many smaller proxy services remaining, few of them on their own are capable of absorbing anywhere near the current demand. The underground cybercrime forums are now awash in pleas from people who are desperately seeking a new supplier of abundant, cheap, and reliably clean proxies to restart their businesses. 911 was already akin to critical infrastructure for many in the cybercriminal community after its top two competitors - VIP72 and LuxSocks - closed or were shut down by authorities over the past 10 months. Last week, a seven-year-old proxy service called 911re abruptly announced it was permanently closing after a cybersecurity breach allowed unknown intruders to trash its servers and delete customer data and backups. Compounding the problem, several remaining malware-based proxy services have chosen to block new registrations to avoid swamping their networks with a sudden influx of customers. With the recent demise of several popular “proxy” services that let cybercriminals route their malicious traffic through hacked PCs, there is now something of a supply chain crisis gripping the underbelly of the Internet.
