Re: (broadband routers) PC World: Flash Attack Could Take Over Your Router

From: Sean Donelan (no email)
Date: Thu Jan 17 2008 - 12:01:58 EST

  • Next message: Joe Abley: "Re: Network Operator Groups Outside the US"

    On Wed, 16 Jan 2008, Gadi Evron wrote:
    > Props to Jeff Chan who I saw it from.
    >
    > Yes, I still believe these ISP distributed machines called broadband routers
    > are a network operators issue. But not all may agree on that.

    I doubt many ISP security or customer care folks are fans of UPnP.

    The distribution channel (consumer electronics retail store, discount
    mail order company, etc) is less important than working with the CPE
    vendors. I worked with a few CPE vendors for several years since 2003 to
    improve some things. You may be able to figure out which CPE vendors,
    because they have UPnP off by default (or don't have UPnP), and other
    nice things such as automatic security patch loading. CPE owners take even
    less care of the CPE than even PCs.

    But even though a few other large ISPs copied some of my requirements for
    their RFPs, a lot of CPE is distributed through many channels. I'm a bit
    suspicious of some security researcher's statistics about UPnP gateway
    configurations in different markets.

    If you just want to rant at network operators go ahead. But it will
    probably be more productive working with CPE vendors and ISPs on a few
    constructive things.

    What specifications can consumer electronics stores and ISPs include in
    the RFPs to consumer CPE vendors? What can consumer CPE vendors include
    at the price-points for the market for consumer CPE? Is the Carterphone
    era over, and consumers just can't handle managing CPE anymore?


  • Next message: Joe Abley: "Re: Network Operator Groups Outside the US"





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