Uncategorized

If You Have a Wireless Router, The FBI Wants You to Reboot It

If your internet service runs through a wireless router, you might want to reboot the software after you read this. That’s because the FBI is warning citizens about a potential hacking situation. Rebooting your wireless router may just thwart off a malware program that is guilty of infecting thousands of routers across the United States.

The FBI has confirmed that the name of this malware is known as VPNFilter. Experts in malware believe that a group of Russian hackers may be responsible for this infestation. Early reports state that these hackers are assumed to be in cahoots with the Russian military intelligence group known as GRU.

VPNFilter infiltrates wireless routers, getting access to any and all traffic that may flow through the system. If they so desire, the hackers have the ability to shut down your access to the internet as well…even if you were in the middle of using it!


Ken Colburn of Data Doctors remarked on GRU’s capabilities stating, “They can literally just decide they’re going to kill off your Internet connection.”

On top of that, these hackers can plant the seeds in your system for even further malware attacks. As Colburn continued, “These compromised devices on the internet can be used to go after our infrastructure.”

Using a VPNFilter, hackers can gather the strength of thousands of computers to take down other large and secure systems such as banks and power plants.

While rebooting your router will be effective in stopping the hackers from what they are doing at that very moment, it does not remove the malware from your system. That means they can get in there again.

Instead, you will have to do a complete factory reset. Unfortunately, when this happens you will have to set up your router from scratch as if it were the first day you got it. Either way, it still beats allowing a hacker to restrict your access to the internet completely.