The FBI warned on Friday that Russian computer hackers had compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and could collect user information or shut down network traffic.
The U.S. law enforcement agency urged the owners of many brands of routers to turn them off and on again and download updates from the manufacturer to protect themselves.
Infections were detected in more than 50 countries, though the primary target for further actions was probably Ukraine, the site of many recent infections and a longtime cyberwarfare battleground.
In obtaining the court order, the Justice Department said the hackers involved were in a group called Sofacy that answered to the Russian government.
Sofacy, also known as APT28 and Fancy Bear, has been blamed for many of the most dramatic Russian hacks, including that of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
Earlier, Cisco Systems Inc said the hacking campaign targeted devices from Belkin International’s Linksys, MikroTik, Netgear Inc, TP-Link and QNAP.
An FBI official told Reuters that the kinds of devices known to be affected by the hack were purchased by users at electronic stores or online.
However, the FBI was not ruling out the possibility that routers provided to customers by internet service companies could also be affected, the official added.
If you own one of the above brand of routers you MUST restart it. To restart it, unplug your router for 30 seconds and then plug it back in.
We have no indication currently that routers from Verizon, Comcast or Cox have this vulnerability, but it wouldn't hurt to restart them anyway.
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