Hackers are brute-forcing older Asus routers

Thousands of Asus routers were compromised and turned into a malicious botnet after hackers uncovered a troubling security vulnerability, experts have warned.

“This appears to be part of a stealth operation to assemble a distributed network of backdoor devices — potentially laying the groundwork for a future botnet,” noted cybersecurity researchers GreyNoise, who first spotted the attacks in mid-March 2025.

Using Sift (GreyNoise’s network payload analysis tool) and a fully emulated ASUS router profile running in the GreyNoise Global Observation Grid, the researchers determined that the threat actors were first breaching routers with brute force and authentication bypassing.

Advanced operations

These poorly configured routers were easy pickings for the attackers, who then proceeded to exploit a command injection flaw to run system commands.

This flaw is tracked as CVE-2023-39780 and carries a severity score of 8.8/10 (high).

The vulnerability was first published in the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) on September 11, 2023, and since then ASUS released firmware updates to address it.

“The tactics used in this campaign — stealthy initial access, use of built-in system features for persistence, and careful avoidance of detection — are consistent with those seen in advanced, long-term operations, including activity associated with advanced persistent threat (APT) actors and operational relay box (ORB) networks,” GreyNoise further explains.

“While GreyNoise has made no attribution, the level of tradecraft suggests a well-resourced and highly capable adversary.”

The attackers use the ability to run system commands, to install a backdoor that’s stored in non-volatile memory (NVRAM).

This means the access they establish survives both reboots and firmware updates. The attackers can maintain long-term access without dropping stage-two malware, or leaving other obvious traces.

We don’t know exactly how many devices are compromised, other than that there are “thousands”, with the number “steadily increasing”.

UPDATE: Asus has issued a statement noting the flaws can be fixed, advising users to update their firmware and create a strong password. A factory reset is also a good idea, as this will clear values, ensuring extra safety.

“Devices that have been updated with the latest firmware and secured with a strong administrator password can prevent future exploitation of this vulnerability and block similar attack methods,” the company said.

“Users are recommended to use a password at least 10 characters long, and include uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols. In addition, ASUS recommends keeping device firmware up to date to ensure ongoing protection.”

techradar.com

The report that Tata Consultancy Services, which is serving as Marks & Spencer’s principal technology partner since 2018, initiated the internal investigation comes after the retailer’s CEO Stuart Machin’s assertion that the incident was due to ‘human error’.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), a long-time service provider to Marks & Spencer (M&S), is conducting an internal investigation to determine whether it served as the entry point for the cyberattack on the UK retailer. The Indian IT company aims to complete this internal probe by the end of the month, reported the Financial Times.

This comes after M&S chief executive Stuart Machin attributed the breach to ‘human error’, rather than vulnerabilities within the company’s systems or cybersecurity measures. Machin mentioned that employees of a third-party contractor were deceived, although he did not disclose whether a ransom was paid. He also refrained from specifying if TCS, which has been M&S’s principal technology partner since 2018, was the point of entry used by the attackers.

The breach, which resulted in the theft of some customer data, has significantly impacted M&S’ operations. It forced the British retailer to shut down its online clothing operations for over three weeks and disable certain food-related services. The hacking group known as Scattered Spider, which has also targeted other retailers such as Co-op and Harrods, is held responsible for this breach.

M&S faces significant financial impact from cyberattack

The incident resulted in a market capitalisation loss of more than £750m for the company. The disruption is anticipated to persist until July. The UK authorities are also conducting a separate investigation into the cyberattack.

Last week, M&S released its annual financial results for the year ending March 29, 2025. It acknowledged the cyberattack’s potential cost of up to £300m in operating profit for the current year. The company plans to counter this financial impact through cost management, insurance claims, and enhanced trading strategies. Additionally, M&S will categorise expenses directly associated with the breach as separate adjusting items in its financial statements.

TCS also provides services to British consumer co-operative Co-op. However, the company is not investigating any connection to a recent cyberattack on Co-op, as its services were reportedly unrelated to the Co-op’s technology infrastructure, FT said quoting a person familiar with the matter.

Meanwhile, Adidas announced a similar breach recently. In a statement, the German sportswear manufacturer said that an unauthorised external party accessed certain consumer data through a third-party customer service provider.

“We immediately took steps to contain the incident and launched a comprehensive investigation, collaborating with leading information security experts,” it said in a statement. “The affected data does not contain passwords, credit card or any other payment-related information. It mainly consists of contact information relating to consumers who had contacted our customer service help desk in the past.”

As part of its response, Adidas is currently notifying potentially affected consumers about the breach.

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Marks & Spencer (M&S) says it has stopped taking online orders as the company struggles to recover from a cyber attack.

Customers began reporting problems last weekend, and on Tuesday the retailer confirmed it was facing a “cyber incident”.

It told the BBC on Wednesday some of its systems were back to normal, but others remained offline.

Now the firm has entirely paused orders on its website and apps.

“We are truly sorry for this inconvenience,” it wrote in a post on X, external.

“Our experienced team – supported by leading cyber experts – is working extremely hard to restart online and app shopping.

“We are incredibly grateful to our customers, colleagues and partners for their understanding and support.”

It said its stores remain open despite the issues affecting online ordering.

Previously, the firm was dealing with problems which affected people using Click & Collect, as well as paying with gift cards.

Since it suspended online ordering, M&S has responded to social media posts advising customers that these problems persist.

“Gift cards, e-gift cards and credit receipts can’t currently be used as a payment method in store or online,” it said in response to one person on X, external.

But it told another that if people have already received an email telling them an item is ready to be collecting, they should be able to go in-store and pick it up.

“We’re holding all parcels in store until further notice, so there’s no risk of it being sent back,” it said, external.

M&S said on Tuesday it had reported the incident to the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).

The National Crime Agency previously told the BBC its officers are working with the NCSC to support the firm.

Cloud services with weak credentials were a prime target for attackers, often resulting in lateral movement attempts, a Google Cloud report found.

Dive Brief:

• Cloud services accounts with weak or non-existent credentials were the most common entry point for attackers in the second half of 2024, Google Cloud said Wednesday in its Threat Horizons Report.
• Attacks involving weak or no credentials accounted for nearly half of intrusions observed or studied by Google Threat Intelligence Group, Mandiant, Google Cloud’s Office of the CISO and other Google intelligence and security teams during the second half of last year. 
• Misconfigurations in cloud services were the second most common initial access vector, representing more than 1 in 3 attacks Google Cloud studied. The report noted a sharp increase in compromised application programming interfaces and user interfaces, which accounted for almost 1 in 5 attacks during the second half of the year.

Google Cloud links poor credentials to nearly half of all cloud-based attacks | Cybersecurity Dive