FBI Director Christopher Wray has revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in conjunction with its internal allies, has disrupted a network of over 1,000 internet routers compromised by Russian hackers. A Russian military intelligence agency had reportedly been utilizing these routers for espionage operations against the United States and its allies.
The Russian cybercriminals employed a botnet system to gather information from the United States. According to a news release by CNN, the FBI has been engaged in combating espionage operations originating from Russia and China since at least 2022. Following Russia's attack on Ukraine, the FBI announced it had conducted an operation that thwarted the Russian hacking which had infected thousands of hardware devices within the United States. Wray cautioned that Russia gaining access to the US energy sector could swiftly lead to an attack on this critical infrastructure.
During a Congressional full committee hearing held at the end of July, Wray warned that Chinese hackers have been collecting data with the intent to significantly disrupt US critical infrastructure should a crisis arise. He stated that Beijing has been positioning itself within oil and natural gas company networks for over a decade.
"We are extraordinarily concerned about malicious cyber activity from the PRC state-sponsored actor that industry calls Volt Typhoon," said Eric Goldstein, a senior official at Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), referring to the People's Republic of China. "Most of the victims we have identified have no legitimate espionage value." A report from The Guardian found that Chinese hackers have been attempting to infiltrate US infrastructure for at least five years. The US National Security Agency and FBI disclosed that the Volt Typhoon group has been probing into networks related to aviation, rail, pipeline, and mass transit operations. These attacks prompted a series of meetings between White House officials and companies in private technology industry, seeking assistance in preventing further attacks.
