Residential Proxies: Cybercrime's New Enabler

This research report, published by Trend Micro, examines the increasing use of residential proxies by cybercriminals. The article highlights how these proxies enable malicious actors to bypass anti-fraud and IT security systems due to their ability to mimic legitimate user traffic from millions of home IP addresses. It contrasts residential proxies with traditional bulletproof hosting, explaining why the former are more effective for current cybercrime operations. The report also proposes advanced detection techniques, such as JA4+ network fingerprinting, to help organizations identify and mitigate threats originating from residential proxies, which are often sourced from vulnerable or pre-infected IoT devices. Finally, it offers security recommendations for both organizations and end-users to combat this evolving cyber threat.