A new study shows that millions of households could fall victim to a cyberattack due to the use of unpatched and unprotected routers.
See also: Home routers: The new victim of the global chip shortage
Unpatched routers have been a favorite target of criminals lately, as they can give them the ability to gain access to smart home devices and monitor users' communications and internet browsing.
Consumer rights group Which conducted a survey in December of more than 6,000 adults in the UK. Which wanted to see what models of routers the respondents were using.
The results showed that up to 7.5 million households may be using routers with security issues, meaning users are at risk.
After selecting some of the most common devices, Which enlisted the help of Red Maple Technologies to test them and discovered problems in more than half of the routers.
One of the most common issues was the lack of firmware updates, which makes devices vulnerable to attacks. Which claimed that most of the router models it tested hadn't received updates since 2018 and some since 2016 (this affects at least 6 million users).
See also: Microsoft: New study shows significant increase in firmware attacks!
Another problem is weak default passwords which can be easily guessed by malicious hackers and used to remotely compromise devices.
The researchers also discovered local network vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities can only be exploited if criminals are within WiFi range.
See also: How to find the WiFi password on your Mac and how to share it on iPhone?
According to the research, not all old routers are vulnerable to cyberattacks. If the default passwords have been changed and the appropriate updates are made, routers can be secure. These are two things that users should check. Additionally, if updates are not offered for the router that users already have, then they should switch to a newer model.
Source: Infosecurity Magazine
