Backdoor Discovered In Netgear and Linkys Routers 189
An anonymous reader writes "A hacker has found a backdoor in the Linksys WAG200G router, that gives access to the admin panel without authentication. Further research shows that these devices are made by Sercomm, meaning that Cisco, Watchguard, Belkin and various others maybe affected as well. From the article: 'The backdoor requires that the attacker be on the local network, so this isn’t something that could be used to remotely attack DSL users. However, it could be used to commandeer a wireless access point and allow an attacker to get unfettered access to local network resources.'"
Re:malware = local (Score:5, Interesting)
Not even that. If dicking around with the port caused a hard reset of the router, who knows what would happen if you got someone to click on this link [192.168.1.1]. (or set it as an img tag for automatic fun)
Re:Return to vendor (Score:4, Interesting)
Get a refund. This shit must cost them or it will never stop.
On what grounds? They'll just say "It's a bug, we're working on a patch". Has anyone ever been able to get a refund because of a software bug?
Huawei at least have a password... (Score:5, Interesting)
You can telnet into most Huawei/Vodafone DSL modems with admin/{VF-}[Countrycode]hg[ModelId] through the ethernet port...
Re:OpenBSD (Score:4, Interesting)
As a bonus you can work in another unix and get some skill there.
Re:malware = local (Score:5, Interesting)
This is exactly what happened with Apple a couple of years ago. The DNS Changer virus
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/trojan_osx_dnschanger.shtml [f-secure.com]
It infected OSX machines and logged in the users router using the biggest "back door": admin/password. Then it changed to some DNS servers in Russia, and any device on the network was getting redirected to death to all sorts of sites.
Yes, this is a big back door, but no bigger than the admin/password admin/admin default credentials that 99% of people never changed. Thankfully, these days the routers come with better defaults.
Re:malware = local (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can already infect inside computers, do you really need to hack the router?
Two major upsides: hitting the router is a handy way to turn an exploit of a single machine into a position for eavesdropping and/or DNS attacking every device on the network. Odds are good that the one you exploited directly isn't the only one, and the others may be harder targets from the outside. Plus, the router is a handy 'bastion' for re-infection and persistence in case the luckless user finally ditches or wipes his worm farm of a system. Unless you screw it up, badly, most people are barely aware that routers contain software at all, so odds are excellent that they won't be getting rid of you in the near future...