EXPOSE:Russia Might be Looking to Hack into your Router-UK and U.S Authorities Warn

UK and U.S authorities have come out to warn against Russian cyber attacks.

In a recent allegation, Russia is being accused of planning to carry out a massive campaign to undermine the security of firewalls and routers in other to support espionage and future attacks.

In a statement issued by FBI deputy assistant director Howard Marshall, he said;

“The activity highlighted today is part of a repeated pattern of disruptive and harmful malicious cyber action carried out by the Russian government.As long as this type of activity continues, the FBI will be there to investigate, identify and unmask the perpetrators, in this case, the Russian government.”

He added that.

“We do not make this attribution lightly and will hold steadfast with our partners.”

It was further stated in the warning that since 2015, authorities have received information about “cyber actors” taking advantage of a large numbers of enterprise-scale and residential routers and switches around the world.

The warning also revealed that the “cyber actors” are identifying vulnerable devices to break into, so they could extract any configurations from the device, harvest login details, and control the traffic that goes through the router.

Ciaran Martin, the CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, said;

“Russia is our most capable hostile adversary in cyberspace so tackling them is a major priority for the National Cyber Security Centre and our U.S. allies,” Ciaran Martin, CEO of the National Cyber Security Centre, said in a statement.

“This is the first time that in attributing a cyber attack to Russia the U.S. and the UK have, at the same time, issued joint advice to industry about how to manage the risks from the attack. It marks an important step in our fight back against state-sponsored aggression in cyberspace.”

The alert revealed most of the things owners and manufacturers should watch out for. Owners, are advised to ensure network devices are up-to-date, change their default passwords, and confirm the firmware on the device is from a trusted source while manufacturers and ISPs are advised to not support out-of-date, unencrypted, or unauthenticated protocols and services.

The CEO said;

“Many of the techniques used by Russia exploit basic weaknesses in network systems. The NCSC is leading the way globally to automate defences at scale to take away some of those basic attacks, thereby allowing us to focus on the most potent threats.”