February 9, 2010
Security Systems
6 millions vulnerable devices are wired to Internet
The researches scanned Internet for vulnerable devices detection and found about 21000 routers, web-cams and VoIP-connection devices totally open to remote attacks. Their administration interfaces are accessible from any spot on Earth for their users either don’t want or can’t change their presets which also refer to passwords. Most vulnerable devices in USA belong to Linskys – 45% out of 2729 routers with standard passwords. The second place took VoIP terminal of Polycom – 29% out of 585 devices with open access. As Columbia University computer sciences professor Salvatore Stolfo says these devices can be easily installed with any program or firmware downloaded. So, they are the objects of potential interest of bot-net owners and other criminals.
This way hackers may use unprotected routers to perform click frauds or DNS cache poisoning attacks. And access to the Internet calls systems may mean possible software for taping and voice recording installation. The research project that was initiated by Columbia University graduate student Ang Cui was designed to scan networks of biggest providers in North America, Europe and Asia and was sponsored by DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), National Defense Ministry and other organizations. The project results showed that worldwide bot-nets may be formed just with network devices. Since the project start in December 2008 over 130 millions IP-addresses were scanned and about 300 thousands network elements with totally open administrating interfaces were detected. Out of them about 21 thousand with standard passwords appear to be more vulnerable and the rest of them may be attacked with passwords matching. This data extrapolation gives about 6 million of vulnerable Internet wired devices.
Until present the researches concentrated on home routers and devices used by small companies now they started a new stage involving multinational corporations and State networking. According to Stolfo the users got used to purchasing equipment and just wiring it to Internet so even networks containing confidential information should have lots of vulnerable places in their security systems. The researches never interacted with detected vulnerable devices so they presumed their project to be legally operating. Stolfo explains their methods: “The scanning application sends password and if the response is received as the command line than the device is open to attacks. Here we just break the connection and move on.” The Internet providers may easily detect the scanning so to all network queries the link to web-page with project details is integrated so the provider would be able to refuse the scanning. Actually, several universities, companies and state authorities refused it.
The collected data is transmitted to providers hoping they would take care of their clients’ protection. But Stolfo thinks it is the fault of device producers at the first place as they should hide administrating interfaces by default and provide the users with clear instructions on configuration changes. The sellers should also warn the users to change standard passwords to complicated mixes of letters and digits with special symbols. As you don’t need to insert this password on daily basis you may just write it somewhere without memorizing. The researches plan to perform scanning for some more time than take a break and start scanning all over again to see if the protective actions were taken.
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