Walmart-exclusive Router and Others Sold on Amazon and eBay Contain Hidden Backdoors To Control Devices

Bernard Meyer, reporting for CyberNews: In a collaboration between CyberNews Sr. Information Security Researcher Mantas Sasnauskas and researchers James Clee and Roni Carta, suspicious backdoors have been discovered in a Chinese-made Jetstream router, sold exclusively at Walmart as their new line of "affordable" wifi routers. This backdoor would allow an attacker the ability to remotely control not only the routers, but also any devices connected to that network. CyberNews reached out to Walmart for comment and to understand whether they were aware of the Jetstream backdoor, and what they plan to do to protect their customers. After we sent information about the affected Jetstream device, a Walmart spokesperson informed CyberNews: "Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are looking into the issue to learn more. The item in question is currently out of stock and we do not have plans to replenish it."

Besides the Walmart-exclusive Jetstream router, the cybersecurity research team also discovered that low-cost Wavlink routers, normally sold on Amazon or eBay, have similar backdoors. The Wavlink routers also contain a script that lists nearby wifi and has the capability to connect to those networks. We have also found evidence that these backdoors are being actively exploited, and there's been an attempt to add the devices to a Mirai botnet. Mirai is malware that infects devices connected to a network, turns them into remotely controlled bots as part of a botnet, and uses them in large-scale attacks. The most famous of these is the 2016 Dyn DNS cyberattack, which brought down major websites like Reddit, Netflix, CNN, GitHub, Twitter, Airbnb and more.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.