DNSProblem

[Lawrence]

A friend could not access the inet but could get emails. Whenever he tried a search engine, Google or Yahoo, he was told Internet Explorer was out of date and needed upgrading. Needless to say he didn't click on the link offered. He asked me to check his machines out because he thought he must have a virus despite running all manner of checkers. I checked all his machines out and they all showed the same problems. I logged an android tablet on to his network and this too had exactly the same message. I concluded that there was a DNS problem but the router (TP link) wouldn't let me in. Windows showed a DNS address like nothing I'd ever seen. I did a factory reset. I got in and set it up again. All is now well. Now the question. Can someone get into a router from outside or could a virus in a networked machine gain access to a router to reconfigure it?

[EricP]

There was an article out yesterday that said nearly all routers are very easy to get into. Bugs in the firmware, to using exploits to crash and cause a reboot to access the details. Get the PSW and come back at leisure to do what you will.

[The Natural Philosopher]

yes

or could a

[John Rumm]

Yup, there are millions of vulnerable (typically linux based[1]) routers out there that never (or rarely) get patched, and are wide open to attack. DNS hijack attacks are one of the easiest ways of using them to attack networks.

[1] Keep this in mind everytime you see some muppet spout about how its only windows that gets exploited!

[Tim Watts]

And noone patches their routers...

[Tim Lamb]

Anything suspicious about that 4th. url?

While I was reading something downloaded to the hard drive and temporarily overrode Firefox.

Nervous user!

[Brian Gaff]

My modem, which is a router with the router turned off suggests you do not allow the remote option in the menu unless you are asked to by the isp tech troubleshooting the problems. Brian

[John Rumm]

Not that I was aware of (although I run adblock - so that does prevent some ad based compromises)

Overrode in what sense?

[Tim Lamb]

In message , John Rumm writes

Screen went blank for a few seconds while something went in or out of the hard drive.

[polygonum]

I do!