As the broadband industry in the UK continues to mushroom a warning has been released by O2 in relation to one of the company’s wireless broadband routers which may have a potential security flaw. It is alleged that the O2 wireless box III ASDL router has a design fault which could allow potential hackers to perform “cross site forgery attacks”. In simple terms, Paul Mutton, a British security researcher, believes hackers could in some circumstances gain access to the router and potentially change settings on the modem.
Upon gaining control of the modem the hackers would then be able to get a list of IP addresses accessed on the machine, set up remote access points and ultimately connect to any sites the broadband use in question had visited. It is believed that many other Internet service providers may also use a similar type of router technology which will need to be investigated further.
While on the whole the UK broadband network is very secure there are a number of potential access points for would-be hackers which need to be locked down and protected. Thankfully there are many people working on the issue of broadband security which has brought this potential router problem to the attention of the sector.