oreo27 said:
sibbil said:
I've had a couple Linksys/Cisco and had no problem with them whatsoever, but I'm really disappointed with the company because they still have not updated their firmware for many of their routers for the WPS vulnerability issue. What is worse, is the fact that the interim measures apparently work with most other brands. When the interim measure is implemented on Linksys/Cisco routers, the router ignores your setting (turning WPS off actually does nothing on many of their consumer routers).
I know little about networking and this vulnerability? Is this critical or something the in built Windows Firewall will prevent?
Windows Firewall cannot prevent the occurence, but it can help protect your computer(s) if it happens (although I wouldn't trust it at that point). Your network and its internet capability would however, remain compromised.

Consumer routers that display the "Wifi certification" logo on the box are vulnerable. In other words, almost any wireless router purchased in the past few years. Most brands have the option to turn off WPS. I've never fully trusted it anyway so I've always turned it off. The problem with Linksys, and as far as I know only Linksys, you can tell the router to turn it off, the router then tells you it's now turned off, but it really isn't. It is still vulnerable.

This has been known for a year now (although only widely known since around Nov. 2011). I would've expected a company with the reputation that Cisco/Linksys has to be more aggressive than most of the others to get this fixed. Especially considering the fact that most of their Linksys-branded products are the only ones where interim measures are useless.

US-CERT Vulnerability Note VU#723755 - WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) PIN brute force vulnerability

ISC Diary | Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) PIN Brute Force Vulnerability

Cisco response: Cisco Security Response: Wi-Fi Protected Setup PIN Brute Force Vulnerability

Linksys response: Article

All that said, I don't recall ever having to reboot a Linksys router unexpectedly. They do seem for the most part rock-solid. And you can install third party firmware on some models that mitigate the issue.