Report: 83% of Wi-Fi Router are vulnerable
A study published by the American Consumer Institute Center found that 83% of home routers in 186 home routers were compromised due to known vulnerabilities in their firmware. The study used Insignary’s Clarity to scan and detect potential weaknesses in the router’s firmware, finding that each sample router was susceptible to an average of 172 attacks, and a total of 3,2003 vulnerabilities were found in 186 router samples.
Even more worrisome is that 28% of all routers that find security risks have severe and high-risk vulnerabilities, with an average of 36 high-risk and 12 critical attack vectors. This is very important because vital and high-risk security vulnerabilities are more easily exploited, and the level of damage increases significantly compared to low- to medium-level vulnerabilities.
According to Symantec’s Internet Security Threat Report, in 2017 alone, the number of IoT attacks increased by 600%, and home routers accounted for 33.6% of all detections. All IoT devices and routers exposed to high-risk or critical vulnerabilities are vulnerable to attackers, which can result in data loss or even theft.
The study said that Wi-Fi router manufacturers ignored the issue of updating their firmware for known vulnerabilities, which may be more common for other IoT devices. When these security breaches occur, hackers can easily exploit the firmware for malicious attacks.
