Router problems & SECURITY

[Lisa Kachold]

I agree!  These routers are great tools!

 I have $another Linksys tool, with a customized source firmware that includes a 32MB just for Krisrule IDS on it's own processor (8 MB on another ARM proc).  All the features of OpenWRT are worth going out to purchase a used WRT54 (should I ever be free from serious siege)  just to play with my own teenzy weenzy network ala linux stack.

However, it should be noted, that even a Cisco ASA can be made to kick over and fall with enough distributed DoS packet traffic.  What it does after that fall, can be truely interesting, and with OpenWRT and Tomatoe, the administrator (just like in Enterprise networking) can leave glaringly (from external interface view) obvious holes.  

You have been warned - this does not mean I suggest you:

a) Compare apples and oranges (a form of bias)
b) Steer clear of these great toys/tools out of black and white fear based thinking.

It does mean:

a) Configure carefully and well.
d) Save your work.
c) Test from the outside.
b) Refrain from saving your router access passwords in your Browser.

Who knows you might just find a nice undocumented tcp/ip OpenWRT exploit, publish and become more famous that Kevin?

Obnosis | (503)754-4452




PLUG Linux Security Labs 2nd Saturday Each Month at Noon - 3PM

> Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:51:31 -0700
> From: joe at selectitaly.com
> To: m.jarvis at cox.net; plug-discuss at lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> Subject: Re: Router problem
> 
> All my Linksys WRT54G's and the one WRT54GL I have always had that
> problem. I had to pull the power at least once a week, usually much more
> frequently, especially if I was producing a lot of traffic.
> 
> I can't recommend Tomato highly enough, the firmware is amazing! For
> what it's worth, I'd recommend resetting the router to defaults, flash
> Tomato (or DDWRT or OpenWRT, they're all pretty solid) and never worry
> about it again. Assuming, of course, that your router hardware is
> supported (check the version number). I find Tomato to be a lot more
> usable, but that's just me. The official firmware is pretty limited, and
> I suspect that even the most recent version won't fix your problems, so
> if you can go with one of the others, do it, you won't regret it.
> 
> -Joe
> 
> Mark Jarvis wrote:
> > 
> > I have a laptop connected via wireless & two computers connected via
> > cable to a Linksys WRT54G router which is connected to a Linksys cable
> > modem. Most of the time everything is OK but every day or four the
> > router & the cable modem quit talking. When this happens, unplugging the
> > router for 15 or 20 seconds fixes the problem. Friend wife is getting
> > very tired of the interruptions & says "If that router isn't working
> > right, get a new one!"
> > 
> > Before I spend the $$ for a new router, I decided to try upgrading the
> > firmware on what I have. I went to Linksys.com & downloaded a firmware
> > upgrade. I was going to do the recommended backup of the router settings
> > before installing it, but I can't connect to the the blasted router! As
> > instructed, I tried connecting to http://192.168.1.1/. I've tried from
> > Seamonkey, Mozilla, & IE7 and get "Network Timeout" from all.
> > 
> > Is there something I'm missing, or is the router is trying to tell me
> > that it's tired of life?
> > 
> > 
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