Google Disrupts 10+ IPIDEA-Related Chinese Proxy Providers
LunaProxy, ABCProxy, and more have their websites down and their proxy networks decimated.
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On January 28, 2026, Google announced its actions to disrupt IPIDEA – one of the largest residential proxy networks in the world. According to The Wall Street Journal, these measures are expected to knock over nine million devices off IPIDEA’s network.
IPIDEA is a Chinese company that controls or is related to more than a dozen of Hong Kong incorporated brands selling proxy servers. Their non-exhaustive list includes: 360Proxy, 922Proxy, ABC Proxy, Cherry Proxy, IP2World, IPidea.io, LunaProxy, PIA S5 Proxy, PyProxy, and TabProxy.
Google Threat Intelligence Group’s efforts involved three main measures against IPIDEA:
- Taking legal action to take down both the public-facing domains of its brands and the domains used to control the proxy network.
- Sharing technical intelligence on discovered IPIDEA SDKs and proxy software with platform providers, law enforcement, and research firms. (SDKs are components installed into apps like free VPNs to recruit devices into the proxy network.)
- Ensuring that Google Play Protect automatically warns users and removes applications known to incorporate IPIDEA SDKs, also blocking future install attempts.
Google writes that IPIDEA’s network has facilitated several huge botnets like BADBOX2.0, Kimwolf, and Aisuru. For example, recent research surfaced vulnerabilities in IPIDEA’s infrastructure that allowed botnet owners to access and recruit other devices on local networks. Over 550 threat groups have used IPIDEA’s proxies directly to hide their malicious activities.
IPIDEA-related brands have had a big impact on the proxy server market. Between 2022 and 2024, it was flooded with over 20 Hong Kong based entrants. They undercut competitors and, more importantly, popularized unlimited plans that offered unmetered rates for a fixed fee.
To quote IPIDEA’s spokeswoman in the WSJ article: the company and its partners had engaged in “relatively aggressive market expansion strategies” and “conducted promotional activities in inappropriate venues (e.g., hacker forums)”.
She claimed that they have since improved their business practices. While we’ve seen measures to appear legitimate (such as professing to source proxies ethically and screen customers), we found them to lack grounding and actual enforcement.
At the time of writing, the websites of several potentially IPIDEA-related providers remain unaffected. However, the real impact on their proxy networks is yet to be measured.
