September 18, 2024 at 12:05PM
The FBI and cybersecurity researchers have disrupted the massive Chinese botnet “Raptor Train,” which targeted critical infrastructure in the US and other countries, including entities in the military, government, education, and IT sectors. The botnet, employing multi-tier architecture, infected over 260,000 networking devices, primarily routers, modems, NVRs, DVRs, IP cameras, and NAS servers. The threat was confronted through court-authorized operations.
Based on the meeting notes, the key takeaways are:
1. The FBI and cybersecurity researchers have disrupted a large Chinese botnet called “Raptor Train” that targeted critical infrastructure in the US, as well as military, government, higher education, telecommunications, defense industrial base (DIB), and IT sectors, primarily in the US and Taiwan.
2. The botnet, which started in May 2020, has infected over 260,000 networking devices, including routers, modems, NVRs, DVRs, IP cameras, and NAS servers.
3. The primary payload is a variant of the Mirai malware for distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, but such attacks have not been observed.
4. The botnet is a complex, multi-tiered network with an enterprise-grade control system for handling tens of servers and a large number of infected SOHO and consumer devices.
5. The botnet’s infrastructure was controlled by the Chinese company Integrity Technology Group using China Unicom Beijing Province Network IP addresses.
6. Black Lotus Labs identified four Raptor Train campaigns since 2020, with targeted approaches and recruitment efforts.
7. The botnet was linked to state-sponsored Chinese hackers, specifically the Flax Typhoon group, with evidence found in the codebase and infrastructure, overlapping tactics, and connections happening mainly during China’s normal workweek hours.
8. Recommendations for protecting against Raptor Train include network administrators checking for large outbound data transfers, regular rebooting of routers, installing the latest updates from vendors, and replacing devices that are no longer supported.
Feel free to let me know if you need further details or have specific questions about the meeting notes.