Security News > 2020 > March > Patch now! Critical flaw found in OpenWrt router software
A researcher has stumbled on a big security flaw affecting OpenWrt, an open source operating system used by millions of home and small business routers and embedded devices.
OpenWrt has become a popular Linux alternative to the stock software that vendors ship with home routers.
Discovered by Guido Vranken of ForAllSecure, the OpenWrt flaw is in the OPKG package manager, a program used to install or update OpenWrt.
This means that as long as an attacker can create a file that matches the stated size, they can sneak malicious software on to the user's router or device instead of the correct OpenWrt software.
Because many attackers will never use more effort than they have to, it seems more likely that anyone targeting OpenWrt would try their luck with a brute force attack on its management credentials first.