The United States and the United Kingdom have issued a joint warning that you need to take VERY seriously. Russia is spying on you...like, right now!

According to ABC 7 Chicago, "Washington and London are jointly accusing Russia's government of targeting global internet equipment for political and economic espionage. According to the alert, hackers have been scanning devices broadly on the internet and attempting to trick them into giving up login credentials, or trying default passwords, which then allow the hackers to control the devices."

Tactics include planting malware on internet routers and other equipment to lay a foundation for an offensive cyber attack in the future.

"Websites could be redirected. If you're logging into an online bank, for instance, or an Amazon account, passwords could be harvested," said Professor Jeremy Hajek, Illinois Institute of Technology.

This is scary stuff because it's just the beginning.

Most people think of cyber crimes as stealing identities and social security numbers. Yes, those are examples, but examples of the smallest scale. Imagine one day everything just turns off in Chicago. It won't just be house lights and heaters shutting down for a little while. It would literally send the city back to the stone age. The death toll would be catastrophic.

These are the type of cyber attacks that keep government officials up at night.

ABC 7 Chicago reports that, "A joint statement Monday by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre says the targets include public and private internet equipment, but provides no details."

 

More From 96.7 The Eagle