It not often that I see 2 decent stories on the bbc website but today it seems is the exception
This article is one of many of the same sort that have bee surfacing recently regarding holes in many home routers that allow for remote exploits to take place that could affect your security
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26287517Serious security failings in home routers are getting more attention from both attackers and researchers. In recent weeks, attacks have been mounted on Linksys and Asus routers via loopholes that thieves could exploit. In Poland, reports suggest one gang has successfully adjusted router settings in a bid to steal cash.
This week the Internet Storm Center (ISC) warned about a continuing attempt to exploit a vulnerability in 23 separate models of Linksys routers.
A separate study by security firm Tripwire has found that 80% of the 25 best-selling routers available on Amazon are vulnerable to compromise.
Security researcher Craig Young from Tripwire said exploits had been publicly discussed and published for more than one-third of these devices.
The past 12 months have seen a flurry of interest in routers by security researchers keen to find bugs and loopholes. One project detailing their findings now lists hundreds of exploits for routers from 36 separate manufacturers.
That's a lot of potentially open doors it seems, however many of these software deficiencies are only available in certain conditions so don't hit your router with a hammer just yet
Your safe harbour through all of this is to google your router number and type the word "exploit" after that in the google search box, if your all good the results will be pretty negligible, however if your router is well know to researchers as something of a favourite for its easy virtue it might be wise to either replace it with something better or look to the manufacturers site to update its firmware, ensure any remote operations are turned off or disabled in it and NEVER use a default password, that's for newbies
