![\"Dodgy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770741130_632_image.jpeg\"\/)
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Dodgy box usage seems to be at an all-time high<\/p>\n
Irish ‘dodgy box’ users are being warned that their devices may have been hit by a major cyberattack.<\/p>\n
According to Grant Thornton Ireland, the attack was prompted by Kimwolf, a botnet made up of Android-enabled TVs and streaming devices, that are targeting the hundreds of thousands of dodgy box devices in Irish homes.<\/p>\n
With Fire Stick usage on the rise, reports in UK and Ireland suggest that most sports fans believe it is fine to illegal stream action.<\/p>\n
People caught distributing the illegal streaming devices, or watching them, could face fines of up to \u00a350,000 and time in prison in the UK.<\/p>\n
In the UK, the Sport Industry Report showed that 66 per cent of sports professionals, and 58 per cent of the regular population believe illegal streaming to be \u201cacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n
In Ireland, a similar study found that there were 490 million visits to piracy websites in 2024, and that dodgy box usage is in between 320,000 and 400,000 households.<\/p>\n
But as well as fines, the lack of security on users’ devices could cost households dear.<\/p>\n
Howard Shortt, Cybersecurity Partner at Grant Thornton Ireland, said: “Many people don’t realise that a low-cost Android TV box in their sitting room or a cheap smart lightbulb can be compromised in seconds,” said<\/p>\n
“Once attackers gain access, they can use that device as part of a botnet or quietly profile the household to support more targeted and convincing phishing attacks.<\/p>\n
“Attackers typically exploit default passwords, outdated software, or unpatched vulnerabilities in internet-connected devices and once inside a home network, can observe traffic patterns and build a profile of the household.<\/p>\n
“That information allows criminals to engineer highly believable phishing messages. For example, posing as a streaming provider with a prompt to review a show you have just watched.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dodgy box usage seems to be at an all-time high Irish ‘dodgy box’ users are being warned that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-290787","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}