Router Flaw Threatens Small Business Network Security

Secure Your Router for Better Small Business Network Security

Your router is the key to small business network security. It’s the one thing that stands between your business and the Internet — and all the good and bad it contains. Typically, it does a fine job protecting the computers and devices on your LAN (as long as you’ve enabled the proper security and passwords).

But a security flaw in millions of small business routers was presented recently at a security conference. This flaw compromises the guardian at the gate and effectively opens the doors to your small business network. Our sister site, eSecurityPlanet.com explains the problem — and the cure — which happily, turns out to be fairly easy to swallow.

Routers, by definition, have multiple personalities. One Ethernet port is connected to the outside world, four (typically) Ethernet ports offer Internet access to wired devices on a Local Area Network (LAN), and a radio transmitter offers access to Wi-Fi clients. The Wi-Fi interface may even offer multiple SSIDs.

Routers normally keep the various aspects of their personalities separate, but a presentation at the last Black Hat conference, How to Hack Millions of Routers, reported on a crack in this armor. Some understanding of IP addresses is required to understand the problem, so that’s where I’ll begin.

Read the complete article: Improve Network Security with Better Router Security