technology
College student’s cat meme helps crack massive Kimwolf botnet
A Rochester Institute of Technology student helped unravel Kimwolf, the world’s largest botnet, by winning the trust of an anonymous insider on Discord and passing key findings to security teams and law enforcement.
Apr 3rd 2026 · United States
Insights
- Kimwolf infected more than one million devices, including Android phones and digital photo frames.
- The botnet launched major DDoS attacks able to disrupt internet traffic in the US and abroad.
- Benjamin Brundage, a 22-year-old RIT student, coaxed technical details from an anonymous Discord contact using casual messages and a cat GIF.
- Researchers traced a newly disclosed vulnerability that threatened tens of millions of consumers and up to a quarter of global corporations.
- Federal law enforcement moved to dismantle the network after researchers shared the findings two weeks before the takedown.