[News] Netcore, Netis routers at serious risk from hardcoded passwords

More than two million of the devices on the Internet may be vulnerable to hackers monitoring their Internet traffic.

Research from Trend Micro shows that a line of routers from Netcore, a brand name in China (Netis, outside of China) has flows that could allow cyber criminals to monitor a user’s Internet traffic. Trend Micro discovered a backdoor to access the device where the password was hardcoded into the device’s firmware and all routers seem to have the same password, allowing attackers to easily log in to them easily.  Cyber criminals can upload or download files to the device and settings can also be changed to allow them to monitor a person’s Internet traffic as part of a man-in-the-middle attack. Backdoors can be used for legitimate product support, but coding such access methods into software is generally discouraged for fear of abuse.

The Netcore and Netis routers have an open UDP port, 53413, which can be queried since the routers have an externally accessible IP address, Yeh wrote. Trend Micro scanned the Internet and found more than 2 million IP addresses with the open UDP port, which could indicate vulnerable equipment. Trend also found that a file containing a username and password for the routers’ Web-based administration control panel is stored unencrypted, which could be downloaded by an attacker.

The company facing these flaws has been notified by Trend Micro, however without a response or comments.

Retrieved from: Infoworld