ATTENTION: Netgear router users

[Bill Mullen]

Here is a copy of a post made by Gary G. Taylor to various Linux news 
groups on Monday; if you run a Netgear router, it's worth reading, as the 
problems described in the post appear to be valid, AFAICT. The affected 
routers contain a hard-coded IP address to which they are sending SNTP 
packets, often as frequently as one per second, which is causing a DDOS 
effect on the target time server, located  at the U. of Wisconsin.

========

It seems that several Netgear router models have a flaw which has caused
an unintended denial of service attack on the University of Wisconsin.  
You can read details here: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~plonka/netgear-sntp/

It is estimated that there are 700,000 affected routers, of various
models, out there worldwide.

If you are using a Netgear router please update your firmware to the most
recent version.  The Netgear product support download pages begin here:
http://www.netgear.com/support/dnld_main.asp

Not only is this flaw causing problems for the University of Wisconsin but
it must also be using bandwidth across the entire internet, so it is in
our interests to cap off this traffic as well as being good neighbours on
the internet.

You can also help by distributing knowledge of this flaw elsewhere, in
discussion forums, newsgroups, chatrooms etc.  If you know of anybody who
uses a netgear router product you may consider mentioning the flaw.

========

-- 
Bill Mullen   moon at lunarhub.com   MA, USA   RLU #270075   MDK 8.1 & 9.0
"An opinion is like a branding iron. It is one thing to hold it, and
another to press it into the skin of a friend." - James Lileks