<https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/03/russia-has-new-tool-massive-in...> As the world hunkers down in coronavirus isolation and relies on the internet more than ever, a group of dissidents has revealed that Russia has new tools to shut down internet services by tapping internet-connected cameras and similar smart devices. It’s a new version of an old weapon — a creator of botnets that can drive an internet service offline with floods of fake data — that puts to use a previously untapped source of computing power: the ever-growing “internet of things.” The new botnet tool was revealed in documents that give instructions for using a suite of hacking apps called Fronton, Fonton-3D, and Fonton-18. That doesn’t mean the Russian FSB security service will soon be peering through Americans’ cell phones and laptops or internet-connected doorbells. Instead, it means that the Russian government has a new tool for creating a DDoS-capable botnet. These botnets harness the computing power of millions of internet-connected things, direct them to spew random data at specific computers, and overwhelm vital services into uselessness. With millions of Americans newly teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States has never been more dependent on the internet. The internet of things, or IoT, is a term-of-art for the vast array of electronic products that connect to the internet, from refrigerators to medical equipment to automobiles. IoT vulnerabilities have long worried national security experts who say adversaries could exploit them to shut down entire sectors of digital capabilities and infrastructure. The documents say “An attack on national DNS servers can make the Internet inaccessible for several hours in a small country.” On Wednesday, the group Digital Revolution claimed to have obtained technical documents that detail a suite of hacking tools — Fronton, Fonton-3D, and Fonton-18 — and offer advice for tapping into smart devices, including security cameras. Created in 2017 and 2018 by Russia’s FSB Information Security Center, the documents explain how to use the tools to make large botnet attacks on critical national services. [...]