FBI warns of Russian hacks targeting US critical infrastructure [View all]

Source: Reuters

August 20, 2025 5:25 PM EDT Updated 11 hours ago


Aug 20 (Reuters) - Hackers associated with some of Russia’s most prolific cyber espionage units have over the last year been leveraging a vulnerability in older Cisco software to target thousands of networking devices associated with critical infrastructure IT systems, the FBI and Cisco said on Wednesday.

Hackers working within the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) Center 16 are extracting “device configuration information en masse, which can later be leveraged as needed based on then-current strategic goals and interests of the Russian government,” Cisco Talos researchers Sara McBroom and Brandon White wrote in a threat advisory published to the company’s blog.

In a separate advisory, the FBI said that over the last year it had detected the hackers collecting configuration files “for thousands of networking devices associated with U.S. entities across critical infrastructure sectors.”

In some cases the configuration files are modified to enable long-term access for the hackers, who use that access to conduct reconnaissance in targeted networks, with a particular interest in industrial control systems. The Russian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. Moscow denies conducting cyber espionage operations.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-warns-russian-hacks-targeting-us-critical-infrastructure-2025-08-20/