European and American authorities dismantle the SocksEscort malicious proxy network and freeze 3.5 million dollars in cryptocurrency assets

According to market news, the European Cybercrime Centre, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Justice and other agencies, has announced the dismantling of a malicious proxy service network named "SocksEscort" and the freezing of $3.5 million in cryptocurrency related to the case.

The network is said to have compromised over 369,000 routers and IoT devices in 163 countries worldwide, providing users with over 35,000 proxies in recent years. The European Cybercrime Centre stated that 34 domain names and 23 servers were seized in operations across 7 countries, and payment platforms associated with the service are estimated to have received over $5.7 million in cryptocurrency. The investigation began in June 2025 and found that the infected devices were primarily used to facilitate criminal activities such as ransomware and DDoS attacks.

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged that criminals used the proxy service to conceal their location and commit fraud, including bank and cryptocurrency account takeovers, citing multiple victim loss cases, including a New York cryptocurrency exchange customer who was scammed out of $1 million.