Inside China's Hosting Ecosystem: 18,000+ Malware C2 Servers Mapped Across Major ISPs
released on 2026-01-15 @ 12:03:35 PM
An analysis of Chinese hosting environments reveals over 18,000 active command-and-control (C2) servers distributed across 48 infrastructure providers. C2 infrastructure dominates malicious activity at 84%, followed by phishing at 13%. China Unicom hosts nearly half of all observed C2 servers, with Alibaba Cloud and Tencent following. A small set of malware families, including Mozi, ARL, and Cobalt Strike, accounts for most C2 activity. The infrastructure supports both cybercrime and state-linked operations, with RATs, cryptominers, and APT tooling coexisting. High-trust networks like China169 Backbone and CERNET are actively exploited. This host-centric approach exposes long-running abuse patterns and infrastructure reuse across campaigns, enabling more resilient threat detection and mitigation strategies.