US Government 'Took Control' of a Botnet Run by Chinese Government Hackers, Says FBI Director (techcrunch.com)
(Wednesday September 18, 2024 @05:21PM (msmash)
from the cat-and-mouse dept.)
- Reference: 0175025917
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/24/09/18/1728234/us-government-took-control-of-a-botnet-run-by-chinese-government-hackers-says-fbi-director
- Source link: https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/18/u-s-government-took-control-of-a-botnet-run-by-chinese-government-hackers-says-fbi-director/
An anonymous reader shares a report:
> Last week, the FBI [1]took control of a botnet made up of hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices , such as cameras, video recorders, storage devices, and routers, which was run by a Chinese government hacking group, FBI director Christopher Wray and U.S. government agencies revealed Wednesday. The hacking group, dubbed Flax Typhoon, was "targeting critical infrastructure across the U.S. and overseas, everyone from corporations and media organizations to universities and government agencies," Wray said at the Aspen Cyber Summit cybersecurity conference on Wednesday.
>
> "But working in collaboration with our partners, we executed court-authorized operations to take control of the botnet's infrastructure," Wray said, explaining that once the authorities did that, the FBI also removed the malware from the compromised devices. "Now, when the bad guys realized what was happening, they tried to migrate their bots to new servers and even conducted a [Distributed Denial of Service] attack against us."
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/18/u-s-government-took-control-of-a-botnet-run-by-chinese-government-hackers-says-fbi-director/
> Last week, the FBI [1]took control of a botnet made up of hundreds of thousands of internet-connected devices , such as cameras, video recorders, storage devices, and routers, which was run by a Chinese government hacking group, FBI director Christopher Wray and U.S. government agencies revealed Wednesday. The hacking group, dubbed Flax Typhoon, was "targeting critical infrastructure across the U.S. and overseas, everyone from corporations and media organizations to universities and government agencies," Wray said at the Aspen Cyber Summit cybersecurity conference on Wednesday.
>
> "But working in collaboration with our partners, we executed court-authorized operations to take control of the botnet's infrastructure," Wray said, explaining that once the authorities did that, the FBI also removed the malware from the compromised devices. "Now, when the bad guys realized what was happening, they tried to migrate their bots to new servers and even conducted a [Distributed Denial of Service] attack against us."
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/18/u-s-government-took-control-of-a-botnet-run-by-chinese-government-hackers-says-fbi-director/
Re: (Score:2)
by nightflameauto ( 6607976 )
> CyberWe CyberWill CyberSee CyberCyberWarfare CyberIn CyberOur CyberLifetimes.
You missed Cybertron.
Fix 'em or brink 'em (Score:2)
by Gravis Zero ( 934156 )
If the FBI is really going to be undoing botnets like this then they should either take authoritative control and keep these devices secure (firmware updates, change passwords, etc) or if that's impossible, too much effort, or too legality dubious then the devices should be bricked. I'm sure there is precedent for destroying devices that pose a threat to national security.
Re: (Score:2)
by RobinH ( 124750 )
You're gonna brick some lady's baby monitor in Pittsburg, who's working two jobs trying to raise a kid by herself? That's not the right thing to do. Contact the manufacturers and have them improve their product security.
Re: (Score:2)
by zlives ( 2009072 )
Gold Apollo cable modems?
notificiations (Score:4, Insightful)
If the US knows some of the targets, and even perhaps accessed their devices, are they going to notify the victims?
Re: (Score:3)
all your botnets are belong to US?