Emergency Cyber Directive Issued After State-Backed Hackers Target U.S. Government via Cisco Flaws

A state of digital emergency has been declared in the United States following a significant security breach targeting federal agencies. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an "emergency directive" in response to what it describes as an "ongoing exploitation campaign by an advanced threat actor" focusing on network appliances manufactured by Cisco Systems.

Emergency Cyber Directive Issued

The federal security body, which has yet to disclose the specific government entities affected, has acknowledged that at least one agency has been compromised. Officials confirmed that hundreds of the vulnerable Cisco devices are currently deployed across the federal government, necessitating immediate action to "understand the full scope of the compromise."

Experts tracking the campaign believe the hackers are a sophisticated, state-backed group, with speculation pointing toward actors based in China. This group is thought to have been exploiting previously unknown security flaws—known as zero-day vulnerabilities—in the targeted Cisco software for several months, presenting a "significant risk to victim networks," according to CISA.

In its own public statement, Cisco revealed it was alerted to the breaches by multiple government customers as early as May 2025. The complexity of the attack spurred the company to deploy a dedicated, full-time team to investigate. Their response included providing enhanced detection capabilities, analyzing compromised packet captures, and conducting in-depth analysis of firmware extracted from infected devices. These technical efforts ultimately led to the identification of the underlying memory corruption bug within the product software.

Cisco highlighted the extreme sophistication of the incident, noting that the attackers exploited "multiple zero-day vulnerabilities and employed advanced evasion techniques." The company states that the incident required an extensive, multi-disciplinary effort across its engineering and security teams. Furthermore, Cisco believes "with high confidence" that the current threat actor is the same one responsible for the highly publicized ArcaneDoor attack campaign reported earlier in 2024, indicating a persistent and focused adversary.

The emergency directive serves as a mandate for federal agencies to take specific mitigation steps immediately. For its broader customer base, Cisco has strongly urged all users to prioritize updating their software to patch the critical vulnerabilities, a necessary step to safeguard against further exploitation by this highly capable and persistent advanced threat actor.