The Cabinet Division has issued a cyber security advisory for the safe usage of Wi-Fi.
According to the advisory, Wi-Fi connections have become inevitable part of ICT infrastructure. Being a common component in any organization/household network, security of Wi-Fi routers is pivotal in purview of prevalent Cyber Security threats.
Due to exponential increase in critical known vulnerabilities, default security configurations and lack of user awareness, malicious actor can gain persistent access to network/endpoints, install malware and steal sensitive/private data. In this regard, Wi-Fi connection security threats along with prevention guidelines have been highlighted in the advisory.
The advisory notes that Wi-Fi routers are considered one of the least secure devices, as they are focused on functionality rather than security. As per latest research, approximately one third of the discovered critical known vulnerabilities in Wi-Fi routers are neither patched nor addressed by vendors.
Furthermore, lack of expertise in securing/hardening Wi-Fi routers further degrades organization’s security posture.
The advisory has highlighted several common threats and Wi-Fi router hardening guidelines.