After 48+ hours, the mystery of the MASS Asus router outage is solved

erek

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“This is a bunch of BS. Why doesn't Asus put out some kind of statement explaining what's going on?” one user complained."

Asus still hasn’t provided details about the configuration error. Various users have offered explanations online that appear to be correct.

“On the 16th, Asus pushed a corrupted definition file for ASD, a built-in security daemon present in a wide range of their routers,” one person wrote. “As routers automatically updated and fetched the corrupted definition file, they started running out of filesystem space and memory and crashing.”

The explanation answered the question of what was causing routers to crash, but it raised a new one: Why were routers affected even when they had been configured to not automatically update and no manual update had been performed? Asus has yet to address this, but the likely answer is that the definitions file for ASD, which resides in memory and scans devices for security threats, gets updated whether or not automatic updates are enabled.

The long and short of things is that the 48-hour mystery surrounding the malfunctioning Asus routers has now been solved and a fix is in place. We now return you to your normally scheduled Internet usage.

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Source: https://arstechnica.com/information...used-mass-router-outage-worldwide-for-2-days/
 
That's a cruddy "feature". I wonder if they'll give router owners an option to disable updates in the future.
 
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The explanation answered the question of what was causing routers to crash, but it raised a new one: Why were routers affected even when they had been configured to not automatically update and no manual update had been performed? Asus has yet to address this, but the likely answer is that the definitions file for ASD, which resides in memory and scans devices for security threats, gets updated whether or not automatic updates are enabled.
ew-al-bundy.gif
 
I'm going to adjust my tin-foil hat and say this was forced as part of an INFOSEC program.
 
I think you should have auto updates on a router enabled. Granted they are few and far between for some manufacturers, but I'd think youd wanna take the updates as soon as possible for something that's supposed to be protecting your whole LAN
 
I think you should have auto updates on a router enabled. Granted they are few and far between for some manufacturers, but I'd think youd wanna take the updates as soon as possible for something that's supposed to be protecting your whole LAN
Most routers will inevitably lack updates. Also, as you can see you really don't want them anyway. Most routers now requires the cloud to configure them, which is dumb. It doesn't even enhance their features, just a method for them to collect data. OpenWRT, DDRWRT, and Tomato will actually give you really useful router features like adblock and private VPN tunneling, which will come in handy soon for Netflix users.
 
Most routers will inevitably lack updates. Also, as you can see you really don't want them anyway. Most routers now requires the cloud to configure them, which is dumb. It doesn't even enhance their features, just a method for them to collect data. OpenWRT, DDRWRT, and Tomato will actually give you really useful router features like adblock and private VPN tunneling, which will come in handy soon for Netflix users.
Not necessarily for features, more for security against different attacks like RCE, DDoS, stuff like that.
 
Most routers will inevitably lack updates. Also, as you can see you really don't want them anyway. Most routers now requires the cloud to configure them, which is dumb. It doesn't even enhance their features, just a method for them to collect data. OpenWRT, DDRWRT, and Tomato will actually give you really useful router features like adblock and private VPN tunneling, which will come in handy soon for Netflix users.

That's how I felt a couple years ago, but recently there have been MAJOR security vulnerabilities discovered and patched for many different brands of routers. This includes routers that don't have any stupid cloud features.
 
I can report I wasn't affected either. I use Unifi ha ha

But seriously Asus has been making some big mistakes lately in boards and now routers.
 
Most routers will inevitably lack updates. Also, as you can see you really don't want them anyway. Most routers now requires the cloud to configure them, which is dumb. It doesn't even enhance their features, just a method for them to collect data. OpenWRT, DDRWRT, and Tomato will actually give you really useful router features like adblock and private VPN tunneling, which will come in handy soon for Netflix users.

My take is I'd rather be down than vulnerable.

Auto-updates are thus a GOOD thing, despite the risks.

That said, consumer manufacturers are obnoxiously bad in this regard using auto-updates not just for security patching, but also for pushing useless (and sometimes harmful) features on you.

This is why I will never use a non-open source router.

pfSense is great, OPNSense is probably better. DD-WRT and OpenWRT are good options for compatible consumer routers.
 
My take is I'd rather be down than vulnerable.

Auto-updates are thus a GOOD thing, despite the risks.

That said, consumer manufacturers are obnoxiously bad in this regard using auto-updates not just for security patching, but also for pushing useless (and sometimes harmful) features on you.

This is why I will never use a non-open source router.

pfSense is great, OPNSense is probably better. DD-WRT and OpenWRT are good options for compatible consumer routers.
Pfsense is probably superior to essentially anything. Even though I use unifi right now, I did used pfsense in the past and kind of want to go back to pfsense again at some point.
 
That's how I felt a couple years ago, but recently there have been MAJOR security vulnerabilities discovered and patched for many different brands of routers. This includes routers that don't have any stupid cloud features.

Sure, and some of those updates are so horrible you need to revert to a previous version. Cough, netgear..cough. Wifi running fine, then new firmware has older stuff disconnecting randomly then everything is unstable.
 
That's how I felt a couple years ago, but recently there have been MAJOR security vulnerabilities discovered and patched for many different brands of routers. This includes routers that don't have any stupid cloud features.
I'm not saying you never update, just not to depend on the manufacturer for them. You want open source routers, not closed source.
 
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