Wi-Fi routers appear to be another avenue for hackers to strike. As Sequel has said before, often times it is the office hardware people overlook that can pose real danger to a company. Computerworld has reported the popular Belkin N600 DB router has several vulnerabilities unauthenticated hackers could exploit. The CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University (CERT/CC) says remote hackers can use router susceptibility to trick users on a local network into visiting specially-designed websites that automatically download malware, and they can alter device configuration by spoofing Domain Name System (DNS) responses. And what is most terrifying, “attackers with access to the local area network could bypass an affected router’s authentication and take complete control over it.”
The CERT/CC says “there are no practical workarounds for the DNS spoofing or firmware over HTTP issues and no way to prevent attackers from exploiting the authentication bypass vulnerability once they have access to the local network.” Therefore, it is critically important for small and medium-sized businesses to take steps to protect their Wi-Fi networks from future attacks. In order to prevent a hacker from infiltrating your company or home Wi-Fi, we recommend setting strong passwords for both your Wi-Fi network and your router, changing out these passwords regularly, and only allowing trusted computers on your LAN network. As hackers and their attacks become more and more sophisticated, this headline should act as an alert for businesses to leave no stone unturned when it comes to protecting their data.