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Residential Proxies Prospects as well as Provider Selection

Residential Proxies

On January 25, 2024, Microsoft released public guidance on how to defend itself against nation-state organizations that have reported the activities of APT29 , a Russian-linked intrusion group that the U.S. and U.K. governments have blamed on Russia's Proxy Residential, for targeting Microsoft with the goal of gathering information about itself. To improve the security of their operations, APT29 operators rely on Residential Proxies.

 

Neither the public nor the cybersecurity community is well aware of the issues associated with residential proxies. Click here Residential Proxies to sign up and enjoy a free tour to help you .ack to business, Residential proxies can be used for a number of legitimate purposes, and in this paper, the phenomenon of residential proxies is examined in depth, exploring the actual market landscape consisting of multiple providers and explaining how cyberthreat actors use or provide such services.

Over the years, the economically oriented cyber ecosystem has been characterized by the commodification of almost every step of the way. A trend that can be interpreted as a sign of economic maturity in the cyber space, the division of labor means that cyber operations are now increasingly dependent on a multitude of third-party stakeholders. These providers specialize in services ranging from cyber toolkit creation, vulnerability research, bulletproof hosting, traffic generation, and more. As highlighted in a recent report by Cyber Community, residential proxies have become an integral part of many operations. In most cases, these proxies are used for the last mile of actor traffic before accessing or interacting with the environment.

By definition, residential proxies are "rentable" addresses assigned to residential devices that serve as intermediate gateways between two hosts, helping to anonymize the former. Residential proxies typically contain real users' devices, such as desktops, laptops, smartphones, and even IoT devices. Residential addresses used for proxies are usually subscribers of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), making residential IP particularly useful compared to data center proxies, which are categorized as belonging to a pool of commercial IPs rather than real Internet users.

Residential Proxies Provider Selection

Residential proxies have attracted the attention of a number of security researchers and academics over the past few years. Public reports from Trend Micro, DomainTools, Spur, and others have provided valuable insight into how they work. However, the topic is often overlooked and obscured. As such, this joint study aims to round out the existing literature on residential proxies and better portray this ecosystem.

Indeed, whether you or your company has rented residential proxies access or you are unfamiliar with the topic, we believe a comprehensive understanding of such services is necessary for risk assessment and general awareness. Cyber participants are increasingly employing residential proxies to avoid being identified.

The joint report is based on extensive research by Orange Cyber defense's World Watch team. It is also based on unique findings detected in our respective client base, where more than 10 clients were identified as being affected by at least one type of proxies software within their company.

Examining residential proxies now, the main issues are the following:

Size and localization of the IP pool, i.e. the number of "rented" proxies, especially in countries with high demand;

Financial incentives, where the pricing model usually depends on the amount of traffic allocated to the user, at a fixed price per GB. We also observed that residential proxies offer discounted prices based on traffic volume in order to attract new customers;

Accepted payment methods, especially anonymous cryptocurrencies.

Simplified purchase process with automatic access to the service immediately after payment; most residential proxies also usually guarantee 24/7 dedicated support and responsive customer service (mainly through dedicated Telegram accounts or email addresses).