San Francisco, April 17: Cyber security representatives from the US and Britain have warned of Russian state-sponsored cyber-attacks that are targeting network infrastructure devices such as routers and firewalls, to compromise government and private sectors globally.
According to a US Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT), the Technical Alert (TA) provided information on the worldwide cyber exploitation of network infrastructure devices (routers, switches, firewalls, Network-based Intrusion Detection Systems) by Russian state-sponsored cyber actors.
The joint TA is the result of analytic efforts between the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre, according to information on the official website of the DHS.
"Victims were identified through a coordinated series of actions between US and international partners. The report builds on previous DHS reporting and advisories from the UK, Australia and the European Union," the website said.
"The FBI has high confidence that Russian state-sponsored cyber actors are using compromised routers to conduct man-in-the-middle attacks to support espionage, extract intellectual property, maintain persistent access to victim networks, and potentially lay a foundation for future offensive operations," the website added.
Since 2015, the US government has been receiving information from multiple sources -- including private and public sector cyber security research organisations and allies -- that cyber actors were exploiting large numbers of enterprise-class and residential routers and switches worldwide.
The US government assessed that cyber actors supported by the Russian government carried out this worldwide campaign.
These operations enable espionage and intellectual property that supports the Russian Federation's national security and economic goals, the website said.
Russian cyber actors leverage a number of legacy or weak protocols and service ports associated with network administration activities.
Cyber actors use these weaknesses to identify vulnerable devices, extract device configurations, harvest login credentials, modify device firmware, and copy or redirect victim traffic through Russian cyber-actor-controlled infrastructure.
Organisations can use publicly available cyber security guidance and best practices from DHS, allied governments, vendors and the private-sector cyber security community on mitigation strategies for the exploitation vectors to safeguard their networks.
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Lok Sabha seats in southern states to increase from 129 to 195: Amit Shah
New Delhi (PTI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday said a "completely false" narrative is being spread that the representation of southern states will go down in the Lok Sabha after its strength is increased to 816 seats following the implementation of women's reservation and delimitation of constituencies.
Intervening in the debate in Lok Sabha on the three bills introduced for amendment of the women's quota law and to set up a delimitation commission, Shah said the fact is that the number of seats will go up and power will grow.
He said the number of Lok Sabha seats in the five southern states will go up from the present 129 to 195 seats while the percentage of power will increase from 23.76 per cent to 23.87 or almost 24 per cent.
"Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka will increase to 42 from the present 28; in Andhra Pradesh, the number of Lok Sabha sets will increase to 38 from 25; in Telangana, it will be 26 from present 17; in Tamil Nadu, the number of Lok Sabha seats will go up to 59 from the present 39; and in Kerala, it will be 30 seats from the present 20," he said.
Shah strongly rejected the opposition suggestion that the government will indulge in some kind of "mischief" during the delimitation exercise, saying the NDA government has not made any changes in the existing law.
"The delimitation bill is exactly like the previous law brought by your government. There is no change, not even a comma or a full stop," he said.
Explaining how the total number of seats in the new Lok Sabha is fixed at 816, the home minister said it is exactly 50 per cent more than the current total seats.
