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Tech Report: How Easy Is It To Hack Your Wi-Fi Router?

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS)— A new report by an Internet security firm shows that some of the most popular Wi-Fi routers are easy to hack.

It's pretty disturbing because this is a situation where there isn't necessarily anything somebody can do if their router has a built-in flaw. What's going to be happening of course is the routers companies are already starting to take action, in some cases upgrading the firmware, which is the built in software that they can update that can fix problems.

Many routers have remote addressing systems so that you can control them from somewhere else. That could be a convenience for example in a corporation where they could go in and reconfigure routers throughout the world.

It could be a convenience to consumers that may have some technical issues that they can't solve themselves where they can get someone else to get in, but it also creates vulnerabilities.

How Easy Is It To Hack Your Wi-Fi Router?

It's relatively easy for someone with sophistication to do it. It's still a small segment of people that have been hacked.

In Brazil some 4.5 million DSL modems have been hacked so it's a serious problem globally, but less of a problem here.

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