Netgear was told in January its routers can be hacked and hijacked. This week, first patches released – after exploits, details made public Netgear has issued patches to squash security vulnerabilities in two router models that can be exploited to, for instance, open a superuser-level telnet backdoor. Those two devices are the R6400v2 and R6700v3, and you can get hot-fixes for the holes here. However, some 77 models remain reportedly vulnerable, and no fixes are …
That's perfectly acceptable- I bought an R7690P back in december which apparently has a flaw in it that when you power cycle the device, it reverts to factory defaults. Netgear's response is "take it back to the purchase place for an exchange, or pay for a support call to swap it, even if it's under warranty."
I replaced it with a TP-link something or other and DD-Wrt'd it- even though that firmware is still beta, it doesn't lose it's config after a power cycle...
I'm done with Netgear at this point for good.
"Grimm: publishing an in-depth advisory showing how to exploit the holes, and released full, working proof-of-concept exploit code".
I feel really conflicted about this. Yes, Netgear should have patched their routers. But how many home users update the firmware even when an update is available. I'm on my 4th router, and none have ever had a process to notify me that an update was available, let alone actually automate the updating. I have made it a habit to check Asus's website on patch Tuesday (my current router is from Asus), but does anyone really believe more than 10% of people ever check for updated firmware, if the router is still working.
Given that reality, why publish exploit code so any jackass with time on their hands can hack people's networks. Until we have processes in place to make router (and other internet connected IOT devices) updating simple and a common practice, this seems like nothing more than showboating which hurts security, rather than helping. Free advertising for Grimm, but hardly a benefit to security.
YMMV
I've avoided Netgear products for a long time now. The only thing I'd buy from them is a 5 or 8 port unmanaged switch as they seem to be able to make them reasonably well for low cost but there's plenty of other players in that space now too. I had a nasty bug in Netgear ProSmart switches that would let broadcast traffic traverse VLAN boundaries such as DHCP requests, played havoc on a LAN until I found it. Netgears approach to security has always been very ordinary.
I dumped them a few years back after I had two different models both decide to do something strange with WiFi unless you powered on a wired device. Unlike yourself I wouldn't give them the time of day when I needed a 5 port unmanaged switch, so got a cheapy TP-Link one.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
