logoalt Hacker News

WalterBright • today at 6:12 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

Devices like routers should have firmware in memory that has read-only access. The access should be turned on or off by a physical switch.

This way, if malware gets installed on your router, doing a cold boot will eliminate it. You can have a timer to just cold boot it regularly.

I've suggested this many times. The rationale for not doing it is so the firmware can be remotely updated. Well, that's exactly how malware infects it.


Replies

mijowi • today at 9:25 AM

So how do you propose to address the inevitable vulnerabilities in firmware that hasn’t been updated? A tech must be physically present to flip the switch before updating?