JDY botnet
JDY botnet is a botnet observed by Dragos being used in a Volt Typhoon–correlated activity cluster tracked as Voltzite. In the reported campaign, the JDY botnet was used to scan public-facing IP address ranges and VPN appliances, targeting organizations in the energy, oil, gas, and defense sectors. Dragos reported no confirmed exploitation during this scanning phase and assessed with moderate confidence that the activity was intended for pre-staging future intrusions and potential operational-data exfiltration.
Hunt this family in your stack
Mallory pivots from this family to the IOCs, detections, and named campaigns that touch your stack, and pages you when something new lands.
Vulnerabilities exploited
1 CVE Mallory has correlated with this family across public research and vendor advisories. Each row links to the full Mallory page for that vulnerability.
Black Lotus Labs found a clear focus on military-related networks, with U.S. military entities the most prominent targets. Most strikingly, the operators ramped up scans of Fortinet devices right after a new flaw, CVE-2026-35616, went public.
Groups observed using it
1 distinct threat actor attributed by public researchers. Open in Mallory to see the full evidence chain and overlapping campaigns.
Another campaign involved Voltzite using the JDY botnet to scan for public-facing IP addresses and VPN appliances across energy, oil, gas, and defense sectors.
Techniques & procedures
13 distinct techniques documented for this family, organized by ATT&CK tactic.
Reconnaissance
4 techniques
Reconnaissance
“JDY malware doesn’t directly attack systems. Instead, it collects detailed information about infrastructure to map potential targets. This data is then likely used by other tools to plan exploits, discover vulnerabilities, and carry out actual attacks.”
the botnet now scans the internet for fresh vulnerabilities almost as soon as they are disclosed
Execution
1 technique
Execution
Stealth
1 technique
Stealth
Discovery
1 technique
Discovery
Command and Control
6 techniques
Command and Control
Once running, the malware beacons to a central “dispatch service” and pulls scanning tasks on demand.
“The malware itself identifies its host, checks in to the dispatch service via HTTPS with a structured JSON packet describing the system’s OS, architecture, uptime, memory, and malware version, then waits for scanning tasks.”
Operators run it through hidden Tor services that mask both the control and payload servers.
Because so many bots are legitimate U.S. devices, the JDY botnet blends into normal traffic. Consequently, geofencing, IP reputation filters, and static blocklists struggle to catch it.
IOCs tracked for this family
2 indicators attributed across vendor reports, sandbox runs, and researcher write-ups. Full values are available in Mallory.
IPs, domains, and DNS infrastructure linked to this family.
File hashes (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256) from samples and reports.
Recent activity
3 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Botnet used to conduct scanning activity against public-facing IP space and VPN appliances, supporting follow-on intrusion activity.
Botnet used to conduct scanning/reconnaissance of public-facing IP ranges and VPN appliances, likely to pre-stage future intrusions into critical infrastructure environments.
Botnet used to conduct scanning of public-facing IP ranges and VPN appliances, assessed as potential pre-staging for future intrusions and operational data exfiltration.
The version that knows your environment.
Match every observed IP, domain, and hash against your live telemetry.
Named campaigns wielding this family, with evidence pinned to each claim.
CVEs this family uses for access and lateral movement.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Every documented technique, ranked by evidence weight.
Reddit, Mastodon, and CTI community discussion around this family.