WASHINGTON – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned on Fridaythat Russian computer hackers had compromised hundreds of thousands of homeand office routers and could collect user information or shut down networktraffic.
The US law enforcement agency urged the owners of many brands of routers toturn them off and on again and download updates from the manufacturer toprotect themselves.
The warning followed a court order Wednesday that allowed the FBI to seizea website that the hackers planned to use to give instructions to therouters. Though that cut off malicious communications, it still left therouters infected, and Friday’s warning was aimed at cleaning up thosemachines.
Infections were detected in more than 50 countries, though the primarytarget for further actions was probably Ukraine, the site of many recentinfections and a longtime cyberwarfare battleground.
In obtaining the court order, the Justice Department said the hackersinvolved were in a group called Sofacy that answered to the Russiangovernment.
Sofacy, also known as APT28 and Fancy Bear, has been blamed for many of themost dramatic Russian hacks, including that of the Democratic NationalCommittee during the 2016 US presidential campaign.
Earlier, Cisco Systems Inc said the hacking campaign targeted devices fromBelkin International’s Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear Inc, TP-Link and QNAP.