Hackers attacked Cisco servers. They leave the message "Do not interfere in our elections"

Unknown hackers attacked Cisco products, which led to massive failures in the Internet. This was reported by Interfax with reference to the press service of Kaspersky Laboratory.

“According to our sources, a massive attack on sweatshirts is now taking place (the Catalyst Switch model switches- ed.) Cisco, which are used in Date Centers almost everywhere,” the message said.

The Kaspersky Laboratory said that hackers use vulnerability in a program called Cisco Smart Install Client to be able to execute an arbitrary code on the device. “Attackers rewrite the image of the Cisco IOS system and change the configuration file, leaving in it the message“ Do Not Mess with Our Elections ”(“ Do not interfere in our elections ”),” the company said.

As a result of the attack, entire data centers are inaccessible, which leads to the inaccessibility of many popular sites. “According to Cisco Talos, there are more than 168,000 devices subject to this vulnerability in the world,” the press service said.

“The scale of the attack is not yet completely clear, but they can be very serious. Apparently, the attackers attack mainly the Russian -speaking segment of the Internet, although others clearly also got it, ”Kaspersky laboratories added.

In particular, the sites of the Fontanka and Komsomolskaya Pravda were attacked. Mass malfunctions were also reported on Friday Twitter users.

In Cisco, patches were released for detected vulnerability.

According to the Cisco research group - Talos Intelligence, the Dragonfly group associated with the Russian authorities is behind the attack. The company does not exclude the hacks of American federal departments, including energy and military.

Cisco is an American manufacturer of network equipment.