‘Popa’ Botnet Linked to Publicly-Traded Israeli Firm

A cluster of major cybersecurity incidents and trends reported by KrebsOnSecurity in May–June 2026: researchers linked the Popa Android-based botnet—used to hijack millions of consumer TV/set‑top boxes for advertising fraud, account takeovers and mass scraping—to NetNut/Alarum Technologies (a publicly traded Israeli “residential proxy” provider). A new, fast‑growing ransomware group called “The Gentlemen” has emerged as a top operator by victim count, using an aggressive affiliate model (paying affiliates up to 90%) to scale. Microsoft’s June Patch Tuesday addressed a record ~200 flaws (nearly