An open source router built for security
Secure Networker
Home routers are known for weak security. Turris Omnia is an attempt to build a better router through the power of open source.
Hundreds of Internet routers inhabit the IT consumer marketplace. However, the little boxes that connect our home or work offices to the Internet are continually causing a stir. At the end of November 2016, 900,000 customers of a German telecom company were cut off from the Internet for hours – and even for days – because the Speedport router supplied by the company fell victim to a denial of service attack.
Strangely enough, the attack was not even intended for the routers. Instead, the attackers wanted to penetrate the vulnerable remote maintenance interface of a completely different device type. In order to exploit an existing vulnerability of the targeted routers, and thus integrate them into a botnet, the attackers indiscriminately flooded the Internet with port-knocking packets to open a communication channel to the affected systems.
An investigation revealed that the company had left port 7547/TCP wide open on the devices; customers had warned the company as early as 2014 of this potential and completely unnecessary vulnerability, but for whatever reason, many devices were still vulnerable.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.