Your TV Box Was a Botnet 📺 + a 9.8 Linux Flaw You Can't Ignore 🐧

Today's headlines hit close to home: the cheap streaming box in your living room and the servers running much of the internet both made the security news. Here's what you need to know.

📺 1.3 Million TV Boxes Were Secretly Renting Out Your Internet

Google says it has disrupted a massive botnet called XCPE, built from more than 1.3 million Android TV boxes made by Videostrong. Owners had no idea their devices were quietly selling access to their home internet connections to "residential proxy" services and running ad fraud in the background. That means strangers could route their online activity through your home IP address, potentially dragging you into suspicious traffic you never created. The same malware was also found in telehealth devices, karaoke machines, and digital signage, and Google's takedown may cut off more than 10 million additional infected devices. The lesson: off-brand, bargain-bin smart devices can come with hidden extras, so stick with reputable brands and keep an eye on anything plugged into your network.

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🐧 A Near-Perfect-Score Linux Bug Means It's Patch-and-Reboot Time

Red Hat has patched CVE-2026-98432, a critical flaw rated 9.8 out of 10 in how the Linux kernel handles network connections. In plain terms, an attacker could send specially crafted network traffic to a server that's listening for connections and potentially take control of it, no password required. Linux runs a huge share of the world's websites, cloud services, and business systems, so the potential reach is enormous. The good news is no one has been seen exploiting it yet, but fixes for RHEL 8, 9, and 10 require a reboot, and Ubuntu's fixes are still in testing. If your business runs Linux servers, this should be at the top of this week's to-do list.

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