JERUSALEM, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- A new Israeli study indicates that routers from well-known manufacturers are vulnerable to cross-router data leaks through malicious attacks, the Ben Gurion University said Thursday.
Many organizations and home networks use a host and guest network on the same router hardware to increase security.
Most of today's routers have at least two network options: one for the family, which may connect all the sensitive smart home and IoT (internet of things) devices and computers, and the other for visitors or less sensitive data.
According to the researchers, all the routers they surveyed, regardless of brand or price point, were vulnerable to at least some cross-network communication once they used specially crafted network packets.
The researchers demonstrated the existence of different levels of cross-router covert channels which can be combined and exploited to either control a malicious implant, or to exfiltrate or steal the data.
They noted that a hardware-based solution seems to be the safest approach to guaranteeing isolation between secure and non-secure network devices.
