On the floor, the Superbox media streaming gadgets on the market at retailers like BestBuy and Walmart might seem to be a steal: They provide limitless entry to greater than 2,200 pay-per-view and streaming companies like Netflix, ESPN and Hulu, all for a one-time charge of round $400. However safety consultants warn these TV packing containers require intrusive software program that forces the person’s community to relay Web site visitors for others, site visitors that’s typically tied to cybercrime exercise akin to promoting fraud and account takeovers.
Superbox media streaming packing containers on the market on Walmart.com.
Superbox payments itself as an inexpensive approach for households to stream the entire tv and film content material they may probably need, with out the trouble of month-to-month subscription charges — for a one-time cost of practically $400.
“Uninterested in complicated cable payments and hidden charges?,” Superbox’s web site asks in a latest weblog submit titled, “Low-cost Cable TV for Low Revenue: Watch TV, No Month-to-month Payments.”
“Actual low cost cable TV for low revenue options does exist,” the weblog continues. “This information breaks down the very best alternate options to cease overpaying, from free over-the-air choices to one-time buy gadgets that eradicate month-to-month payments.”
Superbox claims that watching a stream of films, TV reveals, and sporting occasions gained’t violate U.S. copyright legislation.
“SuperBox is rather like another Android TV field in the marketplace, we cannot management what software program clients will use,” the corporate’s web site maintains. “And also you gained’t encounter a legislation problem until importing, downloading, or broadcasting content material to a big group.”
A weblog submit from the Superbox web site.
There’s nothing unlawful concerning the sale or use of the Superbox itself, which can be utilized strictly as a approach to stream content material at suppliers the place customers have already got a paid subscription. However that’s not why persons are shelling out $400 for these machines. The one approach to watch these 2,200+ channels totally free with a Superbox is to put in a number of apps made for the system that allow them to stream this content material.
Superbox’s homepage features a distinguished message stating the corporate does “not promote entry to or preinstall any apps that bypass paywalls or present entry to unauthorized content material.” The corporate explains that they merely present the {hardware}, whereas clients select which apps to put in.
“We solely promote the {hardware} system,” the discover states. “Prospects should use official apps and licensed companies; unauthorized use might violate copyright legislation.”
Superbox is technically right right here, aside from perhaps the half about how clients should use official apps and licensed companies: Earlier than the Superbox can stream these 1000’s of channels, customers should configure the system to replace itself, and step one entails ripping out Google’s official Play retailer and changing it with one thing referred to as the “App Retailer” or “Blue TV Retailer.”
Superbox does this as a result of the system doesn’t use the official Google-certified Android TV system, and its apps won’t load in any other case. Solely after the Google Play retailer has been supplanted by this unofficial App Retailer do the varied film and video streaming apps which are constructed particularly for the Superbox seem accessible for obtain (once more, exterior of Google’s app ecosystem).
Consultants say whereas these Android streaming packing containers usually do what they promote — enabling consumers to stream video content material that might usually require a paid subscription — the apps that allow the streaming additionally ensnare the person’s Web connection in a distributed residential proxy community that makes use of the gadgets to relay site visitors from others.
Ashley is a senior options engineer at Censys, a cyber intelligence firm that indexes Web-connected gadgets, companies and hosts. Ashley requested that solely her first identify be used on this story.
In a latest video interview, Ashley confirmed off a number of Superbox fashions that Censys was finding out within the malware lab — together with one bought off the shelf at BestBuy.
“I’m certain lots of people are pondering, ‘Hey, how dangerous might or not it’s if it’s on the market on the massive field shops?’” she mentioned. “However the extra I seemed, issues received weirder and weirder.”
Ashley mentioned she discovered the Superbox gadgets instantly contacted a server on the Chinese language prompt messaging service Tencent QQ, in addition to a residential proxy service referred to as Grass IO.
GET GRASSED
Also referred to as getgrass[.]io, Grass says it’s “a decentralized community that permits customers to earn rewards by sharing their unused Web bandwidth with AI labs and different firms.”
“Consumers search unused web bandwidth to entry a extra various vary of IP addresses, which permits them to see sure web sites from a retail perspective,” the Grass web site explains. “By using your unused web bandwidth, they’ll conduct market analysis, or carry out duties like internet scraping to coach AI.” 
Reached through Twitter/X, Grass founder Andrej Radonjic instructed KrebsOnSecurity he’d by no means heard of a Superbox, and that Grass has no affiliation with the system maker.
“It seems to be like these packing containers are distributing an unethical proxy community which persons are utilizing to attempt to benefit from Grass,” Radonjic mentioned. “The purpose of grass is to be an opt-in community. You obtain the grass app to monetize your unused bandwidth. There are tons of sketchy SDKs on the market that hijack individuals’s bandwidth to assist webscraping firms.”
Radonjic mentioned Grass has carried out “a sturdy system to determine community abusers,” and that if it discovers anybody attempting to misuse or circumvent its phrases of service, the corporate takes steps to cease it and forestall these customers from incomes factors or rewards.
Superbox’s guardian firm, Tremendous Media Expertise Firm Ltd., lists its road tackle as a UPS retailer in Fountain Valley, Calif. The corporate didn’t reply to a number of inquiries.
In line with this teardown by behindmlm.com, a weblog that covers multi-level advertising and marketing (MLM) schemes, Grass’s compensation plan is constructed round “grass factors,” that are earned by way of the usage of the Grass app and thru app utilization by recruited associates. Associates can earn 5,000 grass factors for clocking 100 hours utilization of Grass’s app, however they have to progress by way of ten affiliate tiers or ranks earlier than they’ll redeem their grass factors (presumably for some sort of cryptocurrency). The tenth or “Titan” tier requires associates to build up a whopping 50 million grass factors, or recruit at the least 221 extra associates.
Radonjic mentioned Grass’s system has modified in latest months, and confirmed the corporate has a referral program the place customers can earn Grass Uptime Factors by contributing their very own bandwidth and/or by inviting different customers to take part.
“Customers aren’t required to take part within the referral program to earn Grass Uptime Factors or to obtain Grass Tokens,” Radonjic mentioned. “Grass is within the means of phasing out the referral program and has launched an up to date Grass Factors mannequin.”
A evaluation of the Phrases and Situations web page for getgrass[.]io on the Wayback Machine reveals Grass’s guardian firm has modified names at the least 5 instances in the midst of its two-year existence. Looking out the Wayback Machine on getgrass[.]io reveals that in June 2023 Grass was owned by an organization referred to as Wynd Community. By March 2024, the proprietor was listed as Decrease Tribeca Corp. within the Bahamas. By August 2024, Grass was managed by a Half Area Labs Restricted, and in November 2024 the corporate was owned by Grass OpCo (BVI) Ltd. At present, the Grass web site says its guardian is simply Grass OpCo Ltd (no BVI within the identify).
Radonjic acknowledged that Grass has undergone “a handful of company clean-ups during the last couple of years,” however described them as administrative modifications that had no operational affect. “These replicate regular early-stage restructuring because the undertaking moved from preliminary improvement…into the present construction below the Grass Basis,” he mentioned.
UNBOXING
Censys’s Ashley mentioned the telephone house to China’s Tencent QQ prompt messaging service was the primary pink flag with the Superbox gadgets she examined. She additionally found the streaming packing containers included highly effective community evaluation and distant entry instruments, akin to Tcpdump and Netcat.
“This factor DNS hijacked my router, did ARP poisoning to the purpose the place issues fall off the community to allow them to assume that IP, and tried to bypass controls,” she mentioned. “I’ve root on all of them now, they usually even have a folder referred to as ‘secondstage.’ These gadgets even have Netcat and Tcpdump on them, and but they’re speculated to be streaming gadgets.”
A fast on-line search reveals varied Superbox fashions and lots of comparable Android streaming gadgets on the market at a variety of high retail locations, together with Amazon, BestBuy, Newegg, and Walmart. Newegg.com, for instance, presently lists greater than three dozen Superbox fashions. In all circumstances, the merchandise are offered by third-party retailers on these platforms, however in lots of situations the success comes from the e-commerce platform itself.
“Newegg is fairly dangerous now with these gadgets,” Ashley mentioned. “Ebay is the funniest, as a result of they’ve Superbox in Spanish — the SuperCaja — which could be very widespread.”
Superbox gadgets on the market through Newegg.com.
Ashley mentioned Amazon lately cracked down on Android streaming gadgets branded as Superbox, however that these listings can nonetheless be discovered below the extra generic title “modem and router combo” (which can be barely nearer to the reality concerning the system’s conduct).
Superbox doesn’t promote its merchandise within the typical sense. Quite, it appears to depend on lesser-known influencers on locations like Youtube and TikTok to advertise the gadgets. In the meantime, Ashley mentioned, Superbox pays these influencers 50 p.c of the worth of every system they promote.
“It’s bizarre to me as a result of influencer advertising and marketing often caps compensation at 15 p.c, and it means they don’t care concerning the cash,” she mentioned. “That is about constructing their community.”
A TikTok influencer casually mentions and promotes Superbox whereas chatting together with her followers over a glass of wine.
BADBOX
As plentiful because the Superbox is on e-commerce websites, it is only one model in an ocean of no-name Android-based TV packing containers accessible to customers. Whereas these gadgets usually do present consumers with “free” streaming content material, in addition they have a tendency to incorporate factory-installed malware or require the set up of third-party apps that have interaction the person’s Web tackle in promoting fraud.
In July 2025, Google filed a “John Doe” lawsuit (PDF) towards 25 unidentified defendants dubbed the “BadBox 2.0 Enterprise,” which Google described as a botnet of over ten million Android streaming gadgets that engaged in promoting fraud. Google mentioned the BADBOX 2.0 botnet, along with compromising a number of varieties of gadgets prior to buy, may also infect gadgets by requiring the obtain of malicious apps from unofficial marketplaces.
A number of the unofficial Android gadgets flagged by Google as a part of the Badbox 2.0 botnet are nonetheless broadly on the market at main e-commerce distributors. Picture: Google.
A number of of the Android streaming gadgets flagged in Google’s lawsuit are nonetheless on the market on high U.S. retail websites. For instance, trying to find the “X88Pro 10” and the “T95” Android streaming packing containers finds each proceed to be peddled by Amazon sellers.
Google’s lawsuit got here on the heels of a June 2025 advisory from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which warned that cyber criminals had been gaining unauthorized entry to house networks by both configuring the merchandise with malicious software program previous to the person’s buy, or infecting the system because it downloads required functions that include backdoors, often in the course of the set-up course of.
“As soon as these compromised IoT gadgets are linked to house networks, the contaminated gadgets are vulnerable to turning into a part of the BADBOX 2.0 botnet and residential proxy companies recognized for use for malicious exercise,” the FBI mentioned.
The FBI mentioned BADBOX 2.0 was found after the unique BADBOX marketing campaign was disrupted in 2024. The unique BADBOX was recognized in 2023, and primarily consisted of Android working system gadgets that had been compromised with backdoor malware prior to buy.
Riley Kilmer is founding father of Spur, an organization that tracks residential proxy networks. Kilmer mentioned Badbox 2.0 was used as a distribution platform for IPidea, a China-based entity that’s now the world’s largest residential proxy community.
Kilmer and others say IPidea is merely a rebrand of 911S5 Proxy, a China-based proxy supplier sanctioned final yr by the U.S. Division of the Treasury for working a botnet that helped criminals steal billions of {dollars} from monetary establishments, bank card issuers, and federal lending applications (the U.S. Division of Justice additionally arrested the alleged proprietor of 911S5).
How are most IPidea clients utilizing the proxy service? In line with the proxy detection service Synthient, six of the highest ten locations for IPidea proxies concerned site visitors that has been linked to both advert fraud or credential stuffing (account takeover makes an attempt).
Kilmer mentioned firms like Grass are most likely being truthful after they say that a few of their clients are firms performing internet scraping to coach synthetic intelligence efforts, as a result of quite a lot of content material scraping which finally advantages AI firms is now leveraging these proxy networks to additional obfuscate their aggressive data-slurping exercise. By routing this unwelcome site visitors by way of residential IP addresses, Kilmer mentioned, content material scraping corporations could make it far trickier to filter out.
“Net crawling and scraping has at all times been a factor, however AI made it like a commodity, information that needed to be collected,” Kilmer instructed KrebsOnSecurity. “Everyone wished to monetize their very own information pots, and the way they monetize that’s completely different throughout the board.”
SOME FRIENDLY ADVICE
Merchandise like Superbox are drawing elevated curiosity from customers as extra widespread community tv reveals and sportscasts migrate to subscription streaming companies, and as individuals start to comprehend they’re spending as a lot or extra on streaming companies than they beforehand paid for cable or satellite tv for pc TV.
These streaming gadgets from no-name expertise distributors are one other instance of the maxim, “If one thing is free, you’re the product,” which means the corporate is earning profits by promoting entry to and/or details about its customers and their information.
Superbox house owners may counter, “Free? I paid $400 for that system!” However bear in mind: Simply since you paid lots for one thing doesn’t imply you might be finished paying for it, or that in some way you’re the just one who is perhaps worse off from the transaction.
It might be that many Superbox clients don’t care if somebody makes use of their Web connection to tunnel site visitors for advert fraud and account takeovers; for them, it beats paying for a number of streaming companies every month. My guess, nevertheless, is that fairly a couple of individuals who purchase (or are gifted) these merchandise have little understanding of the discount they’re making after they plug them into an Web router.
Superbox performs some severe linguistic gymnastics to assert its merchandise don’t violate copyright legal guidelines, and that its clients alone are liable for understanding and observing any native legal guidelines on the matter. Nevertheless, purchaser beware: For those who’re a resident of the US, you need to know that utilizing these gadgets for unauthorized streaming violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and may incur authorized motion, fines, and potential warnings and/or suspension of service by your Web service supplier.
In line with the FBI, there are a number of indicators to search for which will point out a streaming system you personal is malicious, together with:
-The presence of suspicious marketplaces the place apps are downloaded.
-Requiring Google Play Shield settings to be disabled.
-Generic TV streaming gadgets marketed as unlocked or able to accessing free content material.
-IoT gadgets marketed from unrecognizable manufacturers.
-Android gadgets that aren’t Play Shield licensed.
-Unexplained or suspicious Web site visitors.
This explainer from the Digital Frontier Basis delves a bit deeper into every of the potential signs listed above.
