Four-Faith Industrial Routers Targeted in Botnet Hijacking Campaign

Four-Faith industrial cellular routers are being actively targeted in a growing botnet campaign exploiting a critical authentication bypass flaw tracked as CVE-2024-9643.

Security researchers warn that attackers are rapidly weaponizing the vulnerability to hijack exposed devices and repurpose them as part of large-scale malicious infrastructure.

Four-Faith Industrial Routers Targeted

CVE-2024-9643 affects Four-Faith F3x36 industrial routers and carries a critical CVSS score of 9.8. The flaw stems from hard-coded administrative credentials embedded within the device’s web interface.

Attackers can exploit this weakness by sending specially crafted HTTP requests to management endpoints such as “/Status_Router.asp,” bypassing authentication entirely.

Once access is obtained, attackers gain full administrative control. This allows them to modify configurations, extract sensitive data, and maintain persistent control over the device.

Exploitation Timeline

• February 4, 2025: Vulnerability publicly disclosed
• April 15, 2026: CrowdSec releases detection signatures
• April 20, 2026: First exploitation attempts observed in the wild
• May 12, 2026: Classified as “Mass Exploitation”
• May 18, 2026: 139 unique attacking IPs identified

The rapid escalation highlights how quickly threat actors operationalize publicly known vulnerabilities, especially when exploitation requires minimal effort.

According to CrowdSec telemetry, attackers are primarily focused on infrastructure takeover. Around 76% of observed activity aligns with botnet-building objectives. Compromised routers are being used as proxy nodes, command relays, or entry points for further network intrusion.

Industries with distributed infrastructure, such as retail, logistics, and utilities, are particularly at risk. These routers are often deployed in remote or lightly monitored environments, making them attractive targets.

Attack traffic has been observed globally, with notable sources in:

• United Kingdom
• Germany
• United States
• Netherlands

This geographic spread suggests automated scanning and exploitation rather than targeted attacks.

The Four-Faith F3x36 router is widely used to connect remote sites and industrial systems. Because it sits at the network edge, a compromised device can:

• Intercept or manipulate traffic
• Expose internal systems
• Serve as a persistent foothold for attackers

For example, an attacker controlling a router in a retail branch could quietly redirect traffic or use it to launch attacks against other organizations without detection.

Mitigation and Recommendations

Organizations using affected devices should take immediate action:

• Apply firmware updates provided by Four-Faith or vendors without delay
• Restrict access to router management interfaces, especially from the internet
• Monitor network traffic for unusual activity or unauthorized configuration changes
• Deploy intrusion detection solutions such as CrowdSec to identify exploitation attempts
• Block known malicious IPs using threat intelligence feeds

Security researchers from Cisco Talos and VulnCheck have also published technical analyses and detection resources, including publicly available scanning templates, further lowering the barrier for attackers.

With active exploitation underway and automation increasing, unpatched routers risk becoming part of the next wave of botnet-driven cyberattacks.

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