Consider Replacing Your Old Broadband Routers For Security

May 26, 2021

Written by wukovits

Router being plugged

A company named ‘UK security Watchdog, Which?’ recently released a report with some disturbing security ramifications.

Based on a survey of more than 6000 UK households, the company identified 13 different older routers that are still regularly being used today. Of those 13, nine were found to fall well short of meeting modern security standards.

Naturally, those older routers have not received security updates for quite some time. In some cases, that means their last update was back in 2018, with a few not having seen an update since 2016. Two years is bad enough, but four is almost an eternity in the world of tech.

The UK and US markets are broadly similar, so what’s true there is almost certainly also true here, even if the names of the specific routers change.

Of course, it’s worth mentioning that a significant percentage of users don’t set up their own home networks, but instead rent their equipment from their internet providers.

One would think that this would improve their security, as the company renting the equipment would take care to make sure that their customers got regular security updates. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen as often as you might think. Even if it did, the simple fact is that most older equipment has weak, or completely nonexistent default passwords which make breaking into them a trivial undertaking, even with ongoing, regular security updates.

This, in fact, is one of the reasons why many manufacturers are moving toward simply eliminating default passwords from the equation. It’s a great idea, but it does nothing to help the tens of millions of users around the world who currently own and are actively using older, vulnerable equipment.

Sadly, there are no simple answers here. In a perfect world, every person who went online would do so with security at the forefront of their minds, but that will literally never happen. The best we can hope for is that each time we draw attention to the issue with articles like this, a few people will take heed.

Used with permission from Article Aggregator

Bayou Tech

We provide solutions for your business. Find out how we can help.

Related Articles

New Graphene Technology May Increase Hard Drive Storage

HDDs are old, well understood technology. They haven't changed much in recent years. In fact, increasingly, people are writing them off, preferring SSDs for their greater speed and smaller size, even though HDDs are less expensive. The clever folks at the University...

Some Amazon Device Features May Have Security Risks

Have you heard of Amazon Sidewalk? If not, it's definitely something you should be aware of. Depending on your point of view, the new feature, which was enabled by default on a wide range of Amazon devices by default on June 8 of this year (2021) is either...

Email Unsubscribe Scam Can Easily Fool Any User

Scammers are increasingly relying on a tried and true bit of social engineering to fool unsuspecting users into unwittingly signing up to receive a flood of additional spam email. They accomplish this by blasting out an email asking recipients if they wish to...

Send us a message

Your message was sent.