“The US Justice Department said Wednesday that the FBI surreptitiously sent commands to hundreds of infected small office and home office routers to remove malware China state-sponsored hackers were using to wage attacks on critical infrastructure.
The routers—mainly Cisco and Netgear devices that had reached their end of life—were infected with what’s known as KV Botnet malware, Justice Department officials said. Chinese hackers from a group tracked as Volt Typhoon used the malware to wrangle the routers into a network they could control. Traffic passing between the hackers and the compromised devices was encrypted using a VPN module KV Botnet installed. From there, the campaign operators connected to the networks of US critical infrastructure organizations to establish posts that could be used in future cyberattacks. The arrangement caused traffic to appear as originating from US IP addresses with trustworthy reputations rather than … in China.”
Interesting that CYBERCOM is left out of this story and yet CYBERCOM Commander General Nakasone appeared alongside FBI Director Wray and CISA Director Easterly yesterday in a House Select Committee hearing that focused on cyber threats from China.
Sometimes it’s what’s left unsaid.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-bracing-for-cyber-onslaught-from-china/7465036.html
“U.S. Cyber Command is in the midst of a holistic top-to-bottom review to reshape its organization and forces and ensure it’s best postured to deal with threats in a highly dynamic environment.
Officials are dubbing the review Cybercom 2.0.
“As we’re trying to look at the future of U.S. Cyber Command, I want to have a bold move forward,” Gen. Paul Nakasone, commander of Cybercom and director of the NSA, told reporters during a media roundtable at Fort Meade. Nakasone is set to retire Friday following a change-of-command ceremony where he will pass the torch to Lt. Gen. Timothy Haugh, who will pin on his fourth star.
The command, now just north of 10 years old, was built on many principles of its time a decade ago. The domain it operates in is so dynamic that many of these tenets are now outdated.”
defensescoop.com/2024/01/31/cybercom-2-0-review-holistic-examination-underway/
I am very familiar with the case Dir Wray is referring to here:
I covered it on episode #16 of my show (dang that was a long time ago)
“The first Chinese government intelligence officer ever to be extradited to the United States to stand trial was sentenced today in federal court in Cincinnati.
Yanjun Xu was sentenced to 20 years in prison.”
I tracked this case because, while interesting all on its own, it ran counter to the popular narratives of “FBI BAD!”, “BEIJING BIDEN”, “nOtHiNg iS hApPeNinG!” cynical, reactionary takes that are so common.
I caught a lot of flak for not mimicking such takes.
Since that Xu indictment. there have now been dozens, I think well over 50, indictments of CCP intel officers, agents, and associates.
: )
So, the feds have access to the firmware of our routers. This isn’t the first time they’ve pushed “protection” to the public’s private network equipment. I feel much safer now.
Has anyone heard of or seen news of Xis’ top Intel guy General Dong who defected to us a couple of years ago? He had brought with him thousand (millions?) of terabytes of data relating to Chinas’ 2020 election interference.
It was news for a few days in anon circles then poof went quiet. There must be some very interesting data in those files.
I understand the critical need for secrecy but if we have the goods [they] can’t do a whole lot about it.
I have no question we’ll find out when all hell is unleashed all at once on the deep state. Still, I can’t keep from wondering …