Federal Bureau of Investigation advises reboot, upgrade of routers after Russian hacking

The Justice Department last week urged everyone with a small office home office (SOHO) or NAS device to reboot their gadgets immediately in order to thwart VPNFilter, a new strain of malware that can brick your router. Its “VPNFilter” malware had been detected in devices in 54 countries but was “actively infecting Ukrainian hosts at an alarming rate”, according to Cisco’s cyberintelligence unit, Talos.

Authorities are warning that Russian hackers have infected a device that brings the internet to our homes and offices.

The FBI says restart your routers to block hackers from getting your precious information.

Having the malware on your router puts you at risk of data theft – any data travelling through the router is at risk – as well as DDOS attacks and attacks on other devices. Rebooting the router will unload the Stage 2 and Stage 3 components of VPNFilter, but Stage 1 will start again after the router reboots. Unplug the router from the electrical outlet. 3. Plug the router back into the electrical outlet and power the device on.

Finally, make sure that no one else, and no device, in your household is actively using the internet connection, as the reset and setup process can take up to an hour. You can see a full list below.

This time around, its VPNFilter malware has already taken hold of hundreds of thousands of home and office routers globally.

Cisco Talos says the known affected devices are Linksys, MikroTik, NETGEAR and TP-Link networking equipment in the small and home office (SOHO) space, though they note their research is still not complete. Users should also upgrade their devices’ firmware. And enable encryption, if that’s available on your device. The agency also recommends to disable your routers’ remote management settings, and update the password you use to access your router’s settings.