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The upcoming Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas offers an annual parade of security researchers revealing new ways to break various elements of the Internet. But few of the talks have titles quite as alarming as one on this year's schedule: "How to Hack Millions of Routers."
Craig Heffner, a researcher with Maryland-based security consultancy Seismic, plans to release a software tool at the conference later this month that he says could be used on about half the existing models of home routers, including most Linksys, Dell, and Verizon Fios or DSL versions. Users who connect to the Internet through those devices and are tricked into visiting a page that an attacker has set up with Heffner's exploit could have their router hijacked and used to steal information or redirect the user's browsing.
Several brands and models are vulnerable, and more upsetting for the custom firmware zealots these are joined by DD-WRT and Open-WRT. Oh the horror.
If physical access to the router is readily available, consider the router compromised as access can be gained by resetting the password. DO NOT DO THIS UNLESS REQUESTED TO DO SO, AS LAST RESORT !!! This method of entry is included in the HOW-TO at the end of this checksheet.