HTTPBot: The Gaming-Rambling Machine That’s Hot

A new botnet has entered the scene—and it’s no arcade game. HTTPBot, a Windows-based botnet first spotted in 2024, has been unleashing highly targeted DDoS attacks against gaming, tech, education, and tourism platforms in China. With over 200 precision strikes since April 2025, this malware is changing the DDoS landscape from indiscriminate disruption to pinpointed throttling.

Gamer Jacker: The Victims

HTTPBot’s main targets are sectors where real-time interaction and uptime are critical:

• Gaming platforms: Login portals and payment systems are among the most attacked, causing downtime and revenue losses.

• Technology companies: Especially those offering public-facing services and APIs.

• Educational institutions: E-learning platforms and resource servers have also been disrupted.

• Tourism portals: Booking engines and informational sites have been caught in the crossfire.

• 
  

It’s No Game—But Rather Shame: The Breach

Delivered likely via phishing emails or malicious downloads, HTTPBot infects Windows systems through social engineering or bundled installers. Once inside, it:

• Hides its graphical interface to avoid user detection.

• Alters Windows Registry settings to ensure automatic execution on startup.

• Establishes a connection to a command-and-control (C2) server.

• Launches HTTP flood attacks using stealth modules, including:

  • BrowserAttack: Uses hidden Chrome instances to simulate legitimate sessions.

  • HttpAutoAttack: Leverages cookies to mirror authentic browsing behavior.

  • HttpFpDlAttack: Forces the server to return large HTTP/2 responses, maxing out CPU.

  • WebSocketAttack: Establishes ws:// and wss:// connections for continuous load.

  • PostAttack: Relies on HTTP POST methods for volumetric targeting.

  • CookieAttack: Extends cookie manipulation on top of BrowserAttack to sustain sessions.

This botnet’s sophistication lies in how it mimics normal browsing patterns, bypassing traditional defenses that rely on protocol integrity and traffic volume thresholds.

Game Over: Defensive Measures

From the user’s side, defending against botnet campaigns like HTTPBot begins with hardening the first point of contact: the browser. Users are often the initial target, tricked into executing malware through phishing links or malicious downloads disguised as legitimate files. A secure browser extension like ConcealBrowse plays a crucial role here. It proactively blocks access to phishing pages, stops credential harvesting attempts, and prevents interaction with known malicious infrastructure. By intercepting threats before they ever reach the system, ConcealBrowse reduces the risk of endpoint compromise, lateral movement, and botnet recruitment—especially in sectors like gaming and technology, where real-time user interaction is constant and vulnerabilities can be exploited instantly.

From the service provider’s side, resilience must be built into the infrastructure itself. HTTPBot demonstrates how traditional DDoS defenses—based on traffic volume or signature detection—are no longer enough. This botnet mimics real user sessions using modules that simulate Chrome traffic, manipulate cookies, and exploit the HTTP/2 protocol to drain server resources. To counter this, providers should deploy modern mitigation platforms capable of deep protocol analysis, behavioral inspection, and real-time anomaly detection. These systems must be able to distinguish between legitimate traffic and coordinated attack flows, even when the difference is subtle. Protecting login portals, payment APIs, and backend services from resource exhaustion is no longer optional—it’s a prerequisite for operational continuity.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

https://thehackernews.com/2025/05/new-httpbot-botnet-launches-200.html?m=1