Is your router undead?
End-of-Life Routers that are still in service are in danger of being taken over and added to a botnet, forced to do the evil bidding of their new masters.
The FBI recently released a FLASH bulletin warning about old routers, no longer supported with updates or security patches – being vulnerable to attack by threat actors, who infect them with malware and exploit them in a botnet to conceal hacking and other nefarious deeds.
As an end user, you probably won’t know if your router is infected, as anti-virus tools cannot scan these devices. If your router is compromised, it leaves your entire network at risk, as well as being a pawn in other attacks.
The best thing you can do is identify vulnerable devices and immediately replace them with newer models that are still supported.
The FBI lists the following router models as being known to be vulnerable:
- Linksys E1200, E2500, E1000, E4200, E1500, E300, E3200, E1550, WRT320N, WRT310N, WRT610N
- Cradlepoint E100
- Cisco M10
Even if your device isn’t listed, it is recommended to replace any routers made in 2010 or earlier, as they are probably no longer being updated; and if your router isn’t that old, but still getting up there, check the manufacturer’s website to see if that model is still being updated.
Now if you have an MSP (like Soteria) managing all that sort of thing for your business, they definitely shouldn’t have you running devices that old – but if you have any concerns, don’t hesitate to ask!
