Netgear has issued a patch for a high-severity vulnerability present in virtually a dozen of its Wi-Fi routers (opens in new tab) and urged its customers to use the repair instantly. 

Given the harmful potential of the flaw, Netgear didn’t disclose the small print, aside from saying that it’s a pre-authentication buffer overflow vulnerability, which might be used for every kind of malicious exercise, from crashing the machine after a denial of service, to arbitrary code execution.

To abuse the vulnerability, the attackers don’t want consumer permission or consumer interplay. The flaw can be utilized in low-complexity assaults, it was mentioned.

Pre-authentication buffer overflow

Issuing a safety advisory (opens in new tab) concerning the flaw, Netgear mentioned it “strongly recommends” customers obtain and set up the newest firmware as quickly as potential.

“The pre-authentication buffer overflow vulnerability stays if you don’t full all really helpful steps,” Netgear added. “Netgear will not be answerable for any penalties that would have been averted by following the suggestions on this notification.”

The checklist of the entire affected gadgets, which incorporates a number of Wi-fi AC Nighthawk, Wi-fi AX Nighthawk (WiFi 6), and Wi-fi AC fashions, might be discovered on this hyperlink (opens in new tab).

These trying to patch up their routers ought to navigate to the Netgear Help (opens in new tab) web site, and sort of their Wi-Fi router’s mannequin quantity within the search field. As soon as the best model is recognized, press Downloads, and underneath Present Variations, choose the primary obtain with “Firmware Model” to start with of the title.

Detailed directions on methods to apply the repair might be discovered within the Launch Notes file accompanying the firmware obtain. 

Wi-Fi routers are a preferred goal for cybercriminals as a result of the truth that all of a consumer’s site visitors should undergo the machine. What’s extra, customers hardly ever change the manufacturing facility settings, and replace the firmware even much less incessantly. 

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By way of: BleepingComputer (opens in new tab)