Cybersecurity

Putin’s Secret Intelligence Agency Hacked: Dangerous New ‘Cyber Weapons’ Now Exposed

Red faces in Red Square, again. Last July, I reported on the hacking of SyTech, an FSB contractor working on internet surveillance tech. Now, reports have emerged from Russia of another shocking security breach within the FSB ecosystem. This one has exposed “a new weapon ordered by the security service,” one that can be used to execute cyber attacks on IoT devices.

The goal of the so-called “Fronton Program” is to exploit IoT security vulnerabilities en masse—remember, these technologies are fundamentally less secure than other connected devices in homes and offices. In fact, one of the breached technical documents reported by BBC Russia even explains that “the Internet of Things is less secure than mobile devices and servers.” The security contractors highlight retained default “factory” passwords as the obvious weakness, one that is easy to exploit.