By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The FBI, through a court order, has seized control of a key server in the Kremlin’s global botnet of 500,000 hacked routers, The Daily Beast reports.
The move will allow the bureau to build a comprehensive list of victims of the attack, and short-circuits Moscow’s ability to reinfect its targets.
The FBI counter-operation goes after “VPN Filter,” a piece of sophisticated malware linked to the same Russian hacking group, known as Fancy Bear, that breached the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign during the 2016 election, the Daily Beast explains. On Wednesday security researchers at Cisco and Symantec separately provided new details on the malware, which has turned up in 54 countries including the United States.
