Trend Micro found that in October last year, the number of attempts to hack user routers by brute-forcing the administrator password using special software that automatically tries the most common password combinations began to increase. In just a few months, the number of attacks of this type has more than tenfold. If in September 2019 about 23 million such attacks were recorded, then in December this figure increased to 249 million cases. In March this year, the company recorded about 194 million logins using password brute force tools.  

Trend Micro believes that this trend is due to competition between different groups of cybercriminals who are trying to compromise as many user routers as possible in order to connect them to their botnet networks. In the future, botnets are sold on specialized resources as a tool for carrying out DDoS attacks, or they are offered as a tool for anonymizing various types of illegal actions, including data theft, account hijacking, or clicks cheating. It is noted that the competition in this segment is so serious that hackers remove any foreign malware that is found on jailbroken devices.

Users whose router has been compromised by cybercriminals can notice this by a significant decrease in the device’s performance level. Trend Micro recommends using strong passwords to protect your home routers by changing them periodically. You should also update the device firmware in a timely manner and restrict access to it, allowing connections only from the local network.