The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a stark warning to the general public, non-public sector, and worldwide companions concerning persistent cyber threats from actors affiliated with the Russian Federal Safety Service’s (FSB) Middle 16.
This unit, acknowledged in cybersecurity circles beneath monikers akin to “Berserk Bear” and “Dragonfly,” has been actively exploiting vulnerabilities in community infrastructure, significantly specializing in Easy Community Administration Protocol (SNMP) and unpatched flaws in end-of-life Cisco gadgets.
A key vulnerability highlighted is CVE-2018-0171, which impacts Cisco Good Set up (SMI) performance, enabling unauthorized entry and manipulation of system configurations.
Over the previous 12 months, FBI investigations have uncovered these actors harvesting configuration information from hundreds of networking gadgets linked to U.S. entities throughout crucial infrastructure sectors, together with power, transportation, and utilities.
Exploitation of Legacy Vulnerabilities
In a number of cases, the intruders altered these configurations to facilitate persistent unauthorized entry, permitting them to carry out detailed reconnaissance inside sufferer networks.
This reconnaissance has proven a specific curiosity in protocols and functions integral to industrial management techniques (ICS), akin to these utilized in operational expertise (OT) environments, doubtlessly laying the groundwork for extra disruptive actions like knowledge exfiltration or sabotage.
The FSB Middle 16’s operations lengthen again over a decade, with a constant sample of concentrating on world networking gadgets that help legacy, unencrypted protocols together with SNMP variations 1 and a couple of, in addition to SMI.
These actors have demonstrated refined capabilities, together with the deployment of customized malware implants.
A notable instance is the “SYNful Knock” malware, publicly disclosed in 2015, which was embedded instantly into Cisco router firmware to keep up long-term persistence and allow command-and-control communications.
Such techniques exploit the inherent weaknesses of outdated {hardware} and software program, the place end-of-life standing usually means a scarcity of safety updates, leaving gadgets uncovered to distant code execution and configuration tampering.
The FBI’s detection efforts reveal that these cyber operations are usually not remoted however a part of a broader marketing campaign geared toward reconnaissance and potential escalation towards crucial infrastructure, aligning with recognized Russian state-sponsored techniques that prioritize stealth and strategic positioning inside adversarial networks.
Historic Context
This exercise clusters beneath associated risk teams, with Cisco Talos lately figuring out it as “Static Tundra” in an August 20, 2025, weblog publish detailing their forensic evaluation of the intrusion strategies.
The FBI emphasizes that prior steerage stays extremely related, together with the 2018 Technical Alert on Russian state-sponsored actors concentrating on community infrastructure gadgets and the Could 6, 2025, Joint Advisory outlining main mitigations for decreasing cyber threats to operational expertise.
These assets advocate for speedy patching of recognized vulnerabilities like CVE-2018-0171, disabling pointless legacy protocols, and implementing community segmentation to isolate ICS environments from broader IT networks.
In line with the report, Organizations are urged to watch for indicators of compromise, akin to surprising SNMP visitors or unauthorized configuration adjustments, and to improve end-of-life gadgets to supported fashions with fashionable encryption requirements.
Within the occasion of suspected compromise by FSB-linked actors, the FBI recommends immediate reporting to native subject places of work or by way of the Web Crime Criticism Middle (IC3).
Previous to submission, victims ought to totally assess routers and networking gear for anomalies, together with malware implants or altered configurations, and embody these technical particulars in experiences to help investigations.
This proactive stance is essential for disrupting the actors’ reconnaissance efforts and safeguarding crucial infrastructure from escalating threats.
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