FBI Urges Businesses and Households to Reboot Routers Due to VPNFilter Malware

The FBI is urging small businesses and households to immediately reboot routers following Cisco’s report that 500,000 infected devices could be destroyed with a single command, according to ZDNet.

The malware, dubbed VPNFilter, was developed by the Russian state-sponsored hacking group Sofacy, also known as Fancy Bear and APT28, according to the FBI, which last week obtained a warrant to seize a domain used to control the infected routers, reported ZDNET.

Cisco’s Talos Intelligence researchers revealed in a report last week that 500,000 routers made by Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear, and TP-Link had been infected with VPNFilter.

The malware is capable of collecting traffic sent through infected routers, such as website credentials.

However, the most worrying capability is that malware allows its controllers to wipe a portion of an infected device’s firmware, rendering it useless. The attackers can selectively destroy a single device or wipe all infected devices at once, according to ZDNet.  More here.