TP-Link is the bestselling router on Amazon—and has been linked to Chinese cyberattacks
U.S. authorities are investigating whether a Chinese company whose popular home-internet routers have been linked to cyberattacks poses a national-security risk and are considering banning the devices.
The router-manufacturer TP-Link, established in China, has roughly 65% of the U.S. market for routers for homes and small businesses. It is also the top choice on Amazon, and powers internet communications for the Defense Department and other federal government agencies.
Investigators at the Commerce, Defense and Justice departments have opened their own probes into the company, and authorities could ban the sale of TP-Link routers in the U.S. next year, according to people familiar with the matter. An office of the Commerce Department has subpoenaed TP-Link, some of the people said. Action against the company would likely fall to the incoming Trump administration, which has signaled an aggressive approach to China.
Alternate Coverage: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/u-s-weighs-ban-on-chinese-made-router-in-millions-of-american-homes/ar-AA1w51es
Welp, there (probably) goes my main source of OpenWRT hardware. Ugh.
Also, assuming there is anything to this (I’m taking it with a huge grain of salt myself), is there any reason to suspect that replacing the firmware with OpenWRT wouldn’t address the issue?
If it’s a compromised hardware UART or Eprom you’re not gonna fix it with a firmware or even OS change.
Nothing in the article suggests it’s anything more than poorly maintained firmware.