Cyber Firms Warn on Suspected Russian Plan To Attack Ukraine (reuters.com)

Jim Finkle, reporting for Reuters: Cisco Systems on Wednesday warned that hackers have infected at least 500,000 routers and storage devices in dozens of countries with highly sophisticated malicious software, possibly in preparation for another massive cyber attack on Ukraine. Cisco's Talos cyber intelligence unit said it has high confidence that the Russian government is behind the campaign, dubbed VPNFilter, because the hacking software shares code with malware used in previous cyber attacks that the U.S. government has attributed to Moscow. Cisco said the malware could be used for espionage, to interfere with internet communications or launch destructive attacks on Ukraine, which has previously blamed Russia for massive hacks that took out parts of its energy grid and shuttered factories. Head of Ukraine's cyber police said on Wednesday that the agency is aware of new large malware campaign, and that it is working to protect Ukraine against possible new cyber threat.

Comments

Black List

[Only Time Will Tell]

At what point can we just sever as much internet traffic out of Russia to the world? I know I'm massively oversimplifying that effort, but should there not be some sort of 'death penalty' against countries engaging in cyber warfare? China and some other smaller nations would likely keep connections which would make it hard to filter between Russian and Chinese communications, but any directly from Russia could be subject to either massive slowdown or complete blocking.

Russia failing to make friends

[Anonymous Coward]

If Russia is trying to convince Ukraine to ally with Russia instead of the European Union, they are going about it in exactly the wrong way.

Re:Russia failing to make friends

[Nidi62]

And the US position on Crimea's right to self determination is exactly the opposite of the US position on Kosovo's right to self determination.

It's hardly "Self determination" when Russia buses in a bunch of Russian citizens and gives them the right to vote in the Crimea right before the election. Next you'll tell me the "separatists" in the Donbass just happened to find a bunch of Russian tanks and air defense systems lying around in barns.

Re:Duh!

[Oswald McWeany]

Ya think?

Actually, name one country that they aren't attacking.

According to all the people named Ivan that post on Slashdot; Russia is a model democracy, a shining beacon of friendship in the world, and would never consider violating another country's rights on stability. Russia certainly are not cyber attacking any country.

Wait for the correct timezone to hit rushhour Slashdot traffic.

Full technical Talos VPNFilter post

[Khopesh]

See also the full Cisco Talos post, New VPNFilter malware targets at least 500K networking devices worldwide, which has all of the technical details, including all indicators of compromise (IOCs).