The NCSC and Digital Trust Center (DTC) have been informed of an advisory from the FBI, the Cyber National Mission Force (CNMF), and the National Security Agency (NSA). This advisory was written in response to a Chinese bot network of over 200,000 devices discovered by these agencies. Of these, several thousand devices are also located in the Netherlands. These include a wide variety of so-called Small Office and Home Office (SOHO) devices, such as Internet modems, routers and various Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Where possible, owners of affected devices will be notified, but this concerns only a portion of the total number of affected devices in the Netherlands. We therefore recommend checking SOHO devices for updates and implementing them when an update is available. Devices that are directly connected to the Internet are unfortunately vulnerable to abuse. Especially with these types of devices, it is important to maintain good basic hygiene.
About IoT and the security of IoT systems, the NCSC has a number of knowledge products available that clearly explain what you can do to be resilient against digital threats. NCSC research shows that IoT is one of the biggest challenges as part of the digital resilience of the Netherlands.
