Here is some good news – in 2021 the number of vulnerabilities discovered in routers decreased to 506 from 603 in 2020. Of that number, 87 were considered critical.
The bad news, however, is that according to Kaspersky, almost a third of critical vulnerabilities discovered in routers throughout 2021 remain unpatched.
“Despite the speed with which technology is coming into our lives, the level of cybersecurity hasn’t kept pace. Many employees have been working from home for the past two years, but the security of routers hasn’t improved over this time – they’re still rarely updated. Therefore, the risk that router vulnerabilities could be abused by cybercriminals remains a concern in 2022,” explains head of the Global Research and Analysis Team at Kaspersky, Maria Namestnikova.
According to survey data from Kaspersky, 73 percent of users never consider updating or securing their router. This is incredibly problematic for one major reason – router information is public information.
Given how widespread their use is, many routers make use of default credentials for access and many users never change these. This makes it child’s play to gain access to a router, your network and anything attached to it.
This, combined with a lack of updates or patches from manufacturers, creates something of a perfect storm for cybercriminals to take advantage of.
As such, the following should be kept in mind when purchasing and installing a router:
- Buying second-hand is not the best idea as the router’s firmware could be modified to gain access to a network remotely. Avoid where possible and ask for guidance where it isn’t possible.
- Change the default username and password and please, use a strong password;
- Don’t post your router’s information to social media;
- Use WPA2 encryption;
- Disable remote access when not needed;
- Stay up to date with new firmware and updates for your router.
“For more security, you can select a static IP address and disable DHCP, as well as protect Wi-Fi with a MAC filter. These actions lead to you having to manually configure the connection of various additional devices to the router, so the process becomes longer and more complicated. Nevertheless, it will be much more difficult for an intruder to penetrate the local network. Be aware and always check the latest information on discovered router vulnerabilities,” Kaspersky adds.
We also highly recommend making use of a network monitoring application that can patrol the halls and alert you to any anomalies. Take your router security seriously folks, you wouldn’t remove your front door now would you?
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
