Security mavens have uncovered a design flaw in most home routers that allows attackers to remotely control the devices by luring an attached computer to a booby-trapped website. The weakness could allow attackers to redirect victims to fraudulent destinations that masquerade as trusted sites belonging to banks, ecommerce companies or health care organizations.
The exploit works even if a user has changed the default password of the router. And it works regardless the operating system or browser the computer connected to the device is running, as long as it has a recent version of Adobe Flash installed. "This is a huge problem," Adrian Pastor, of the prolific hacking organization GNUCitizen, said in an instant message. The problem resides in Universal Plug and Play, a feature built in to most routers used for home networks so machines running games, instant messaging programs and other applications will work seamlessly with the devices. By exposing an end user to a malicious Flash file lurking on a website, attackers can use UPnP, as the technology is usually called, to make significant modifications to the router. Most home routers ‘vulnerable to remote take-over’ | Channel Register
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