Ukrainian Security Service warns about a possible large-scale cyber-attack from Russia during the Champions League final
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) warned of the threat of a massive cyber-attack from Russia on the eve of the UEFA Champions League soccer final that will be held in Kyiv on May 26, the SBU website reports.
Specialists of the Security Service of Ukraine for Cyber-security said that Ukrainian network devices could be infected with malicious software codenamed “VPNFilter.” The virus allows hackers to intercept traffic that passes through the infected device, collect and download information, remotely control the infected device and disable it.
Some routers and other network devices, such as Linksys, Mikrotik, Netgear, QNAP and TP-Link are threatened. The Cisco Talos website reported that the virus infected about half a million devices in 54 countries with the most cases being in Ukraine.
VPNFilter is especially dangerous for automated process control systems, called SCADA. Because of this, the SBU believes that Russia might be preparing cyber-attacks against national critical infrastructure facilities. Given the risks, the SBU and the National Police have already reported the threat to potential victims of the attack.
The SBU recommends users to reboot routers and network file storage to remove potentially malicious software from the device's memory. If there is reason to believe that some device in the local network is infected, its firmware should be updated to the latest version. If the network device has access to the file system, the contents of specific types of directories should be erased.