Updated: February 24, 2021
The FBI warned on Friday that some foreign hackers had compromised hundreds of thousands of home and small router devices around the world.
The routers direct traffic on the internet by forwarding data packets between computer networks.
The FBI said in a statement that it discovered that the foreign cyber criminals used a VPNFilter malware that can collect peoples’ information, exploit their devices and also block network traffic.
“The size and scope of the infrastructure by VPNFilter malware is significant,” the FBI said, without providing details about where the criminals might be based, or what their motivations could be.
The FBI said the hack, by a malware which is hard to detect due to inscription, is capable of rendering peoples’ routers “inoperable.”
“The FBI urged people to reboot their devices to temporarily disrupt the malware and help identify infected devices. People should also consider disabling remote management settings, changing passwords to replace them with more secure ones and upgrading to the latest firmware,” Reuters reported.
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