Cross References
- Alert No. I-052518-PSA, May 25, 2018

The FBI issued a Public Service Announcement (PSA) on May 25 recommending that any owner of small office and home office routers power cycle (reboot) their devices. Foreign cyber criminals have compromised hundreds of thousands of home and office routers and other networked devices worldwide. The criminals used VPN Filter malware to target small office and home office routers. The malware is able to perform multiple functions, including possible information collection, device exploitation, and blocking network traffic.

The malware targets routers produced by several manufacturers and network-attached storage devices. The malware is able to render small office and home office routers inoperable. The malware can potentially collect information passing through the router.

The FBI recommends rebooting the routers to temporarily disrupt the malware and aid the potential identification of infected devices. Owners are advised to consider disabling remote management settings on devices and secure with strong passwords and encryption when enabled. Network devices should also be upgraded to the latest available versions of firmware.