Two days after Cisco patched a severe vulnerability in a popular brand of SOHO routers, and one day after the publication of proof-of-concept code, hackers have started scans and attacks exploiting the said security bug to take over unpatched devices.
The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2019-1663, was of note when it came out on February 27 because it received a severity score from the Cisco team of 9.8 out of a maximum of 10.
It received such a high rating because the bug is trivial to exploit and does not require advanced coding skills and complicated attack routines; it bypasses authentication procedures altogether; and routers can be attacked remotely, over the internet, without attackers needing to be physically present on the same local network as the vulnerable device.
By Catalin Cimpanu