Many popular brands of routers and NAS servers have security vulnerabilities

Routers are already a must-have network device for our daily family life. Whether watching a video or playing games, the router needs to be responsible for transmitting network traffic. Therefore, the security of the router is directly related to the security of the home intranet. If the router is defective, the intranet connected device may also pose a security threat. However, the study found that many well-known brands of routers have more or fewer security vulnerabilities, such as ASUS routing, NETGEAR routing, and Xiaomi router. In addition to routers, NAS-attached network storage servers in-home network devices have also been found to be vulnerable, involving brands such as Synology, QNAP, and Lenovo.

Common router vulnerabilities are due to certain flaws in the firmware developed by the manufacturer. In fact, more ways to capture the home intranet are through the Internet of Things devices, including Android devices, smart TVs, webcams, and other smart appliances. Most home IoT devices look good, but the firmware behind them has a lot of problems, and it is a good way for attackers to penetrate through IoT devices.

If the router is flawed and the hacker takes it, the hacker can hijack the entire intranet. For example, when you visit a site, it is automatically redirected to a malicious website for phishing. Therefore, the security of the router is still very important. However, after purchasing a large number of routers for testing, the researchers found that the security of the current router is not optimistic. The researchers found 125 security vulnerabilities in 13 branded routers or additional network storage servers, and attackers exploited vulnerabilities to take over the entire device. The brands involved include Buffalo, Synology, TerraMaster, Zyxel, Drobo, ASUS and it’s subsidiary Asustor, Seagate, QNAP, Lenovo, Netgear, Xiaomi, Zioncom (TOTOLINK).

Researchers say that these brands of devices have at least one Web vulnerability, and an attacker can use the vulnerability to take down Shell permissions and then remotely control the device. These vulnerabilities include buffer overflows, cross-site scripting, command injection, SQL injection, bypass validation, cross-site request forgery, fake file paths, and more. At present, researchers have notified some equipment vulnerabilities to the equipment manufacturer for repair. It is recommended that users regularly check and update the new version of firmware to ensure security.