Cisco cybersecurity researchers have discovered a new threat to home routers. Here’s how it works and how to defend against VPNFilter
A malicious code designed by a group of Russian hackers has begun targeting hundreds of thousands of routers worldwide. The virus, called VPNFilter, is able to take over your home or office router and use it to spy on our online activities.
The new threat to our personal data was discovered by cybersecurity experts from Cisco, the US telecommunications giant. Initially, it was believed that VPNFilter had infected more than 500,000 routers in over 50 countries, but upon closer inspection it appears that the Russian virus is present on many more routers. Initially, the malware only seemed to be able to make modems unusable, but according to new variants released in the last few days, the VPNFilter virus can bypass the router’s SSL encryption and steal information about our incoming and outgoing traffic or discover confidential details of our router, such as passwords.According to Cisco the routers that can be potentially attacked are those of: ASUS, D-Link, Huawei, Linksys, Microtik, Netgear, QNAP, TP-Link, Ubiquiti, Upvel and ZTE.
How to defend yourself from VPNFilter virus
If our home modem falls into one of those listed above there are a number of steps we need to take to secure it. The first piece of advice is to reboot the router immediately. Secondly we can (if possible) install a patch of our router’s firmware. As a last alternative we can perform a reset to the factory data of our router. How do we do this? Simple, look for the small button with the writing reset in the back of our router and hold it down for about 10 seconds. Given its size, it may be necessary to use a small pointed object, such as a toothpick or a needle.
This last option seems to be one of the most valid. Many manufacturers do not consistently release security patches for their router firmware and rebooting the modem may not be an effective solution at all. VPNFilter is able to reinstall its codes and then reattach our home or office modem.