The F.B.I., working with other countries, disrupted a Russian hacking operation that infiltrated more than 1,000 home and small-business internet routers in the United States and around the world, the Justice Department announced on Thursday.
Russian intelligence, collaborating with cybercriminals, created a botnet, or a network of private computers infected with malicious software, to spy on military and security organizations and private corporations in countries like the United States.
Using a court order, the F.B.I. secretly copied and deleted stolen data and malware from hacked routers. Doing this stopped Russia’s ability to use the routers without affecting how they function, officials said.
The F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, shared details of the operation at an annual security conference in Munich.
You’re right that default credentials should have gone away a decade ago. From my experience with security cameras, default credentials were the norm ~5 years ago and now most prompt you to create a unique password. That industry typically lags slightly in infosec best practices. I would expect routers to require a higher level of security.
These are old deprecated devices on old firmware, not new routers