For months, a number of Netgear routers as well as some of its famous models on Amazon have been casualties of remote attacks. Reports say that a security researcher found out the attacks and immediately alerted the company on Aug. 25.
Wired reports that security researcher Andrew Rollins who notified the company about the remote attacks on its Netgear routers didn't get a response. He decided to disclose the issue to let the public know when he didn't get a reply after over three months of waiting.
According to Engadget, the Department of Homeland Security's CERT group issued a warning regarding the Netgear routers remote attacks a few days back. Netgear has now announced that it's aware of the attacks and has labeled all of its affected routers.
There are 11 affected Netgear routers as announced by Netgearand it has also released patches for some of these routers. The models are R6250, R6400, R6700, R6900, R7000, R7100LG, R7300, R7900, R8000, D6220 and D7000.
Netgear routers R6250, R6400, R6700, R7000 and R8000 have been issued patches by the company although these must be manually installed as there's no way for Netgear to tick an over-the-air update. It is now known yet as to why the company's not through releasing patches for the other routers. Rollins talked to Wired that these remote attacks are not difficult to fix and said that it may appear that Netgear is incompetent.
The Department of Homeland Security said that the Netgear routers remote attacks can be exploited easily where hackers can simply take control of computers making them part of a botnet. There is a blog post by Bas van Schaik, a computer science researcher suggesting a short-term fix, but DHS suggested a better option, which is to discontinue using these routers until patches are released by Netgear.
An American global networking company, Netgear, Inc stylized as NETGEAR renders products to consumers, service providers and businesses that operates in three business sections: commercial, retail and service provider. It was founded on Jan. 8, 1996 and headquartered in San Jose, California.
