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With the Recent Router Malware Warning , and Advise to Reboot Your Modem, Do Gen 5 Need To Reboot ?

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ecoalex2
Tutor

With the Recent Router Malware Warning , and Advise to Reboot Your Modem, Do Gen 5 Need To Reboot ?

Using a HT2000W modem and it's built in router, was it affected by the malware affecting routers ?

Is a reboot of the modem advisable?

 

 Thanks

 

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4 REPLIES 4
Liz
Moderator
Moderator

Hi ecoalex,

 

Good question! If you're referring to the warning regarding the VPNFilter botnet, it seems like it targets home/office routers and network access storage devices. We have not gotten any direction or warning from our network engineers regarding this, but there's no harm in rebooting your HughesNet modem to be on the safer side. 🙂

 

 

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!

On this note - does the hughesnet router update it's firmware automatically?  I looked through the interface and didn't see any option to check for updates.

 

Thanks,

Sue

 

C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

Here's a few things that everyone needs to be aware of...

#1 - The reboot does nothing to fix things, this is more to let federal officials know "X device just tried calling home during bootup, that's +1 affected devices, IP is XYZ which is owned by ISP ABC".  They will probably in the long term, seek assistance from manufactures, or the ISP in getting those devices off of the internet, or patched and repaired.

#2 - The exploits involved publically accessible routers.

#3 - Only Static SME accounts are publically accessible, even then, the HT2000w doesn't have remote management enabled on a public interface.  So residential users have virtually no reason to be worried.  The only ones that should worry are SME customers with Static IP, that have forwarded a port to their local router/firewall for remote management.

#4 - The list of affected devices is large, and you should always ensure you have your firmware updated to the latest possible, regardless of if your router is publically accessible or not.

#5 - The HT2000w gets firmware updates from Hughesnet automatically, we, the end users, have no ability to udpate the firmware.

#6 - MOST of the exploits we have seen the last few years come from a few things that users don't fully understand. 

Most routers ship with remote management ON.
Most routers have built in back doors that gets around the remote management being OFF.
Most consumers don't bother changing the default administrative passwords of their routers and IoT devices.


The chances of a residential Hughesnet customer being impacted is slim to none, but, I do encourage you to update your firmware if you are using a third party router in conjunction with your HT2000w or HT1100.

@C0RR0SIVE

Thanks - a lot of good info. I was thinking that was the case on the firmware updates.