{"id":3803,"date":"2025-12-10T17:38:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/pro-russia-hackers-target-us-critical-infrastructure-in-new-wave\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T17:38:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:38:00","slug":"pro-russia-hackers-target-us-critical-infrastructure-in-new-wave","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/pro-russia-hackers-target-us-critical-infrastructure-in-new-wave\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro-Russia Hackers Target US Critical Infrastructure in New Wave"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"cphContent_pnlArticleBody\" data-layout-id=\"2\" data-edit-folder-name=\"text\" data-index=\"0\">\n<p>Loosely organized pro-Russia hacktivist groups have been observed exploiting exposed virtual network computing connections to breach operational technology systems across multiple sectors.<\/p>\n<p>According to a new report by CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), and other national and international partners, the attacks are part of a surge in low-skilled but disruptive intrusions affecting entities in water treatment, food production and energy in the US.<\/p>\n<p>According to the authoring organizations, groups such as Cyber Army of Russia Reborn (CARR), Z-Pentest, NoName057(16) and Sector16 are using simple reconnaissance tools and common password-guessing techniques to reach internet-facing human-machine interfaces.<\/p>\n<p>Their activity, though less advanced than that of state-directed threat groups, has led to physical impacts in some cases.<\/p>\n<p>CISA said these\u00a0hacktivists typically seek visibility rather than strategic advantage, often overstating the scale of incidents they publicize online.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, operators have faced temporary loss of view and costly manual recovery efforts after attackers altered parameters, disabled alarms or restarted devices.<\/p>\n<p>The advisory outlined how several pro-Russia collectives have expanded since 2022, with some receiving indirect or direct support from Russian state-linked organizations.<\/p>\n<p>CARR and NoName057(16) collaborated extensively before forming Z-Pentest in 2024, while Sector16 emerged in early 2025 through similar alliances. Each group relies on widely available tools to scan ports, brute-force weak passwords\u00a0and record screenshots of compromised systems for online distribution.<\/p>\n<p><em>Read more on critical infrastructure cyber-threats: Critical Infrastructure Urged to Scrutinize Product Security During Procurement<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Recommended Steps For Operators<\/h2>\n<p>The report stressed that owners of industrial and operational technology should tighten exposure and authentication practices. Suggested measures include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p>Reducing public internet access to OT assets<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Adopting stronger asset management, such as mapping data flows<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Using robust authentication, including multi-factor authentication (MFA) where possible<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The advisory also highlighted the importance of network segmentation, strict firewall policies, updated software and contingency plans that allow for rapid manual operation if systems are compromised.<\/p>\n<p>It warned that organizations discovering exposed systems with weak credentials should assume compromise and initiate incident response immediately.<\/p>\n<p>While these attacks remain relatively unsophisticated, the authoring agencies caution that continued activity could result in more severe consequences.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pro-Russia hacktivist groups highlighted in this advisory have demonstrated intent and capability to inflict tangible harm on vulnerable systems,\u201d\u00a0warned CISA executive assistant director for cybersecurity, Nick Andersen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn addition to implementing the recommended mitigations and rigorously validating their security controls, we are calling upon all OT device manufacturers to prioritize secure-by-design principles \u2013 because building in security from the start is essential to reducing risk and safeguarding the nation\u2019s most vital systems.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Loosely organized pro-Russia hacktivist groups have been observed exploiting exposed virtual network computing connections to breach operational technology systems across multiple sectors. According to a new report by CISA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Security Agency (NSA), and other national and international partners, the attacks are part of a surge in low-skilled<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3804,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"medium_large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"morenews-featured":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"morenews-large":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"morenews-medium":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd.jpg",300,300,false],"crawlomatic_preview_image":["http:\/\/ft365.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3803-c1b6f4bb-b26f-4d87-bb84-eb9fcb111efd-146x146.jpg",146,146,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"henry","author_link":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/author\/henry\/"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/category\/uncategorized\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Uncategorized<\/a>","tag_info":"Uncategorized","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ft365.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}