The FBI and NSA have issued a joint advisory warning that a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group known as Volt Typhoon has deployed a previously unseen firmware implant targeting industrial control systems used in US water treatment and power generation facilities.
The implant, dubbed SilentBridge, persists across system reboots and firmware updates by embedding itself in the UEFI layer of affected devices. Detection requires specialized firmware analysis tools that most organizations do not currently possess.
Federal agencies are urging critical infrastructure operators to conduct immediate firmware integrity checks and implement network segmentation to limit the potential impact of compromised devices.
