Replace your previous Asus DSL router for a essential safety flaw
When you’re studying PCWorld, you in all probability know that it’s vital to maintain your PC up to date in order that safety points are patched. And also you in all probability know the identical is true to your telephone, and even issues like a PlayStation. However don’t overlook that your community gear can be, principally, only a bunch of computer systems. And thank Asus for reminding us, because it patches DSL routers to shut exploitable safety flaws.
Particularly, Asus has issued a firmware replace for 3 fashions of comparatively previous DSL routers with mixture Wi-Fi performance: the DSL-AC51, the DSL-N16, and the DSL-AC750. Launched in 2015 and 2017, no less than so far as I can inform from a fast search, these are pretty easy fashions with out tremendous superior options even for the time. However should you occur to have one in your house, you wish to patch that firmware post-haste. They’re prone to an authentication bypass vulnerability, as printed on the multi-vendor document Widespread Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database and noticed by Bleeping Pc.
The direct Asus assist pages for the DSL-AC51, the DSL-N16, and the DSL-AC750 are there, within the hyperlinks that I simply posted in that sentence. Firmware might be downloaded and utilized by way of the web-based interface for many routers, if it hasn’t already executed so mechanically or manually utilized by downloading the file after which importing it within the GUI over the native community.
What in case your router is prone to this explicit vulnerability, however it’s out of service and never getting patched? Then Asus suggests that you just disable principally all superior features, together with distant WAN entry, port forwarding, DNS, VPN server, DMZ, port triggering, and FTP. Which particular older, unsupported DSL routers does this apply to? Don’t ask me as a result of Asus isn’t saying.
I don’t have DSL, however it occurred to me that I don’t know the model and mannequin of my cable modem or Wi-Fi router off the highest of my head. I feel I’ll dig into the rat’s nest behind my printer, simply so I can write them down someplace just a little extra accessible.

