this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 69 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I have a TP-Link router. Maybe I'm an idiot, but I searched around for a bit and I literally could not find which models of router were effected. All articles about Botnet-7777 are frustratingly vague with this.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I've had no end of trouble with routers and ones you should choose to be sure of.

The ones where you can flash OpenWRT seems the only choice if you want some semblance of security. But even my current Xiaomi router with stock firmware creates hash mismatches using apt to download things, and I don't 100% know with confidence that using OpenWRT on it instead is keeping me right.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

But even my current Xiaomi router with stock firmware creates hash mismatches using apt

That's a huge fucking red flag and I would yeet any network equipment responsible for fudging such a thing.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

No doubt, and I would really love someone with more knowledge than me to poke into why that was going on (*edit: for clarity, this behaviour stopped after installing OpenWRT and is the stock Mi firmware that causes this)

https://files.catbox.moe/2i5ekl.jpg

I remember finding this thread where someone said they replaced their entire networking equipment

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/72022569/cannot-find-fixes-to-apt-error-hash-sum-mismatch

My router is this model for anyone wanting to nosey

https://openwrt.org/toh/xiaomi/ax3600

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

my current Xiaomi router

Ah I see the problem right there..

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

As opposed to, TP-Link, Cisco(Linksys) and other off the shelf routers it seems some will only go for brands with their own proprietary firmware?

I grabbed that Xiaomi router on the premise it has OpenWRT, but I'd like to see Ubi / Unifi routers put under the same scrutiny instead of just lumping a brand name as a no-go.

What's your recommendation?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 3 weeks ago

Mine was a half-joke, but it's not the first time chinese hardware was caught sending data around. Now I can't recommend anything specific since the last time I bought a router was ages ago, and even though having one running OpenWRT is good I'd avoid it to be on the safer side.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They are frequently targeted because they offer enterprise grade configurations at consumer prices.

Which means, there's a lot that can be misconfigured, and a lot of short staffed and under budgeted IT departments that deploy them, which means they are a good payoff when exploited.

That's the bad part, and the good part.

You really cannot beat their price point to value for professional grade networking equipment. Just take the time to understand what you're doing when doing your configurations, and keep them updated.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Very little is changing over time... I have a proliant salvage server running proxmox with some hosts and the router only port forwards to an NGINX proxy manager instance for the web interfaces on those hosts. I run a synology NAS separate from the proliant hardware that runs through the proxy.

I know I don't understand it all, and i'm open to suggestions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Did you mean to send that reply to me?

I ask because I'm not quite sure what specific suggestions you're looking for.

But in general, I would suggest not exposing port forwarding.

What services are running behind NGINX? What router/firewall are you using?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Yes, I attribute security significant misconfigurations to a lag between new service deployments and a relevant review by network security (in a business environment. At home it's just me.)

So I'm running Milestone VMS, Synology NAS and maybe in a day a minecraft server for the kids, which should all be available outside my home. I'm using the mikrotik HexPOE which is my main router/firewall.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fairly popular in my neck of the woods and rock solid. I literally had a bad sparky put 230V through one of them. It killed the RJ45, it killed two client hosts on the same bridge, it killed the port, but the Switch itself continued to work. (Still replaced it, though)

The only thing I find them really bad and ironically replaced them with TP-Link (Omada )is Wifi. (and the fact that they let the promising "The Dude" die).

Security wise they seem to do their homework so far.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Fun fact I made my sales team standardize on Omada for all network hardware we are providing (highrise security systems, so SDN is usually out of scope) I was considering replacing my ubiquiti AC Pro soon, but I didn't settle on a new model of access point yet. What are the mikrotik wifi APs bad at? if it's meshing I will only have one.

I didn't look at The Dude before, but it doesn't seem depreciated?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Their solution to central management (Capsman) is a burning mess, when WiFi6 came out for a long time(I think 2 years) you were unable to keep older and newer APs on the same controller, so you needed two Capsman instances. Roaming between them is very unreliable and generally their hardware is underwhelming in terms of antenna quality, etc.

For one AP it is not as bad, but still annoying, if you want to centrally manage more APs it is a nightmare.

I replaced my MK APs with Omada with the software controller on a LXC and couldn't be happier - they play along nicely with my MT infrastructure and are way more reliable.

I really love MT,but not their WiFi.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

Mikrotik is pretty decent but their configuration method drives me up a wall. Ansible helps mitigate the annoyance, at least (in that I only have to figure out/remember the arcane incantation for configuring VLANs once, and then subsequently just have the machine do it).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I love their switches but for routing/firewall I stick to PFSense.

Personally I use OpenWRT for access points.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

OPNsense is better, because it's the same thing but doesn't require registering an account to download the image.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Its been a couple of months but I don't remember that requirement...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You need a Netgate account because they gated the download in some kind of online shop. Try it yourself.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Run them in a lot of places, love them.

They're good at being configured and forgotten about.

My main rack, that's more complicated, I have proper gear, but mikrotik is great for everything else.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

forgotten

that's why that guy seemed so unburdened! I understand him better now

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago

Mikrotik is great for features, but their UI definitely feels ancient and you will sometimes question why something takes this many steps.
However, I've never had an plan I couldn't replicate with their routers.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago

I have setup plenty of MikroTik routers, never had any issues myself.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Never used them pal, but seen them used in Enterprise environments?

Something I've found on a SOHO environment though and what I bought a family member?

Gli-Net mini routers. They come with OpenWRT as a base and then lipstick it with a nice interface. But as always, YMMV

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Years ago, another trade worker on a construction site was using their wifi stuff, and mentioned using it at home. I went and picked up the hexPOE router and i'm pretty happy with it, but all i'm doing is port forwarding and I set up a rule to capture all DNS requests and shunt them into my pihole.

The documentation is pretty spiffy and public.

I'm not really sure if this seems good because I don't know any better, or it's good because it's good.

edit Gli-net seems nice, but i'm a stickler of using a WAP separate from the router. I know I pay more.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

edit Gli-net seems nice, but i'm a stickler of using a WAP separate from the router. I know I pay more.

It's exactly why I bought her two of them. One their main router and the other in AP mode ;)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

If you don't use Microsoft Azure cloud services then it shouldn't matter, for now. Might want to just avoid running those for a little while.

The article also says:

It’s unclear precisely how the compromised botnet devices are being initially infected. Whatever the cause, once devices are exploited, the threat actors often take the following actions:

  • Download Telnet binary from a remote File Transfer Protocol (FTP) server
  • Download xlogin backdoor binary from a remote FTP server
  • Utilize the downloaded Telnet and xlogin binaries to start an access-controlled command shell on TCP port 7777
  • Connect and authenticate to the xlogin backdoor listening on TCP port 7777
  • Download a SOCKS5 server binary to router
  • Start SOCKS5 server on TCP port 11288.

So maybe setting up some firewall rules could also help prevent further problems.