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Netgear has quietly decided not to patch more than 40 home routers to plug a remote code execution vulnerability – despite security researchers having published proof-of-concept exploit code.
The vuln was revealed publicly in June by Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative (ZDI) following six months spent chivvying Netgear behind the scenes to take it seriously.
Keen-eyed Reg readers, however, noticed that Netgear quietly declared 45 of the affected products as "outside the security support period" – meaning those items won't be updated to protect them against the vuln.
America's Carnegie-Mellon University summarised the vuln in a note from its Software Engineering Institute: "Multiple Netgear devices contain a stack buffer overflow in the httpd web server's handling of upgrade_check.cgi, which may allow for unauthenticated remote code execution with root privileges."
[...] With today's revelation that 45 largely consumer and SME-grade items will never be patched, Netgear faces questions over its commitment to older product lines. Such questions have begun to be addressed in Britain by calls from government agencies for new laws forcing manufacturers to reveal devices' design lifespans at the point of purchase.
Brian Gorenc, Trend Micro's senior director of vulnerability research and head of ZDI, told The Register in a statement: "Consumers should always ensure their devices are still supported by their manufacturers. They should also check the available support before purchasing a device. Unfortunately, there are too many examples of vendors abandoning devices that are still in wide use – sometimes even when they are still available to purchase. We hope vendors clearly communicate their support and lifecycle policies so that consumers can make educated choices."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @11:43PM (5 children)
Are you really expecting greater than 3 year support? Go put the damn free software package on that thing.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:06AM (4 children)
Yes, I do expect greater than 3 years of support. At 3 years, the shine is just wearing off. I have multiple devices that are ten years old and more. I don't expect a lot of new features and such to be developed after 3 years, but I do expect security patches, right on out to ten years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @12:19AM
You're in for disappointment then.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @07:08AM (1 child)
Yes, I do expect greater than 3 years of support. At 3 years, the shine is just wearing off.
You must be European. Fucking the customer is the American way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @01:23PM
That's probably an insult to Runaway, but even more shocking to everyone else!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2020, @07:47PM
Agreed. If the thing has a security hole then, as far as I am concerned, the company sold me a defective product to begin with and it is their responsibility to fix it. Even if the defect manifests itself ten years later.