The Federal Bureau of Investigation has disclosed it carried out an operation in March to mass-remove malware from thousands of compromised routers that formed a massive botnet controlled by Russian intelligence.
The operation was authorized by courts in California and Pennsylvania, allowing the FBI to copy and remove the so-called Cyclops Blink malware from infected Asus and WatchGuard routers across the U.S., severing the devices from the servers that remotely control and send instructions to the wider botnet.
The Justice Department announced the March operation on Wednesday, describing it as “successful,” but warned that device owners should still review the initial February 23 advisory to secure their compromised devices and prevent re-infection.
The Justice Department said that since the news first emerged about the rising threat of Cy …
