Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: Security (441 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - Security

Ex-BT CEO to Help UK Gov Hunt for New Telecoms Suppliers

23rd September, 2020 (6 Comments)

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has announced that the Ex-BT CEO and former trade minister, Lord Ian Livingston, will lead a new “Telecoms Diversification Task Force” to help diversify the UK’s telecoms (mobile and broadband) supply chain and reduce reliance on high-risk vendors like Huawei.

New UK Smart Data Laws May Help Broadband Deal Comparisons

10th September, 2020 (0 Comments)

The UK Government has proposed to mandate that broadband and phone providers, as well as related companies in the sector, should participate in their new “Smart Data” initiative, which aims to foster the “sharing [of] customer data” in order to deliver better product comparisons and billing management across accounts etc.

NETGEAR Decline to Patch Security Flaw in 45 Routers and Modems

31st July, 2020 (19 Comments)

Back in June it was revealed that around 80 of NETGEARs broadband wireless router(s), modems and other products suffered from a remote code execution vulnerability, which could allow “unauthenticated remote code execution with root privileges.” The company patched some of those but seems to have no plan for doing the rest.

EE UK Boosts Parental Controls Over Children’s Smartphones

28th July, 2020 (2 Comments)

Mobile operator EE (BT) has today launched “Set Up Safe” for all UK Pay Monthly customers, which is a free new SMS service that is designed to help parents “quickly and easily set up their child’s phone with safety features” (i.e. block adult internet content, set spending caps and stop them adding extra charges to the bill etc.).

DrayTek Interview – A Brief Look Inside a Router Manufacturer

25th July, 2020 (17 Comments)

Taiwan-based network manufacturer DrayTek is a familiar name in the UK broadband ISP world. Since 1997 they’ve been busy building various routers, switches, access points and modems. Suffice to say that we were keen to get their thoughts on the current market for such devices, as well as their plans for the future.

Two Security Vulnerabilities Found in Asus RT-AC1900P Router

23rd July, 2020 (3 Comments)

Owners of the popular ASUS RT-AC1900P (RT-AC68U) broadband router should immediately visit the product’s support site to download and apply the latest firmware update, which comes after two new vulnerabilities were discovered that “could allow for complete compromise” of the device and all traffic that traverses it.

NO Huawei – UK Gov BANs New 5G Mobile Kit from Dec 2020 UPDATED

14th July, 2020 (62 Comments)

The UK Government has today confirmed a dramatic U-turn, which means that new core and non-core 5G kit from Chinese tech giant Huawei will be banned from use in mobile networks from 31st December 2020. But existing kit will get until 2027 for removal and a decision on FTTP broadband ISPs will come later.

Backdoor Access Found in CDATA’s Chinese FTTH Broadband Kit

11th July, 2020 (30 Comments)

Chinese firm CDATA, which makes networking kit for FTTH and Hybrid Fibre Coax based broadband ISPs (often sold re-branded as OptiLink, V-SOL CN, BLIY etc.), is facing a serious problem after security researchers found 7 vulnerabilities in OLT kit including backdoor accounts that grant access to a hidden Telnet admin.

BT and Vodafone Seek 5-7 Years to Pull Huawei or Risk Blackouts UPDATE

9th July, 2020 (16 Comments)

Senior broadband and mobile figures from UK telecoms giants BT and Vodafone have today warned cross-party MPs on the Science and Technology Committee that they’d need at least 5-7 years to fully remove Huawei’s kit from their networks, or “blackouts” could be a risk. The cost may also rise into the billions.

AVM Release Big Update for FRITZ!Box Routers and WiFi Repeaters

9th July, 2020 (3 Comments)

Consumers in the UK who own one of AVM’s popular FRITZ!Box broadband routers or a FRITZ!Repeater (WiFi) may like to know that they’ve released a major new firmware update – FRITZ!OS 7.20. The new software adds lots of improvements, such as support for WPA3 encryption, better WiFi, DNS over TLS and faster performance.

Lords Tell UK Gov to Stop Pandemic of Internet Misinformation

29th June, 2020 (9 Comments)

A new cross-party report from the House of Lords Digital Technologies Committee has called on the UK Gov to ensure that their future Online Harms Bill can tackle the rising “pandemic of misinformation” on the internet, which they warn is a “threat” to democracy. More censorship and blocking by broadband ISPs is proposed.

Government Considers Zero Huawei Kit in UK Telecoms by 2023 UPDATE2

23rd May, 2020 (68 Comments)

At the start of 2020 the UK gave broadband ISPs and mobile operators a green light to use only non-core focused telecoms kit from Chinese giant Huawei (here), including a cap to reduce their market share. But new reports allege that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, could be about to do a dramatic U-turn and shock the industry.

Google Chrome Joins Firefox – Soft Defaults to DNS over HTTPS

20th May, 2020 (9 Comments)

The latest version (v83) of Google’s popular Chrome website browser has finally made its new ‘Secure DNS’ feature available to all, which by “default … will automatically upgrade you” to use their DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) service. But in order to placate concerns it only does this if your current broadband ISP supports it.

Ofcom Records Drop in UK Nuisance Calls, But Problems Remain

4th May, 2020 (6 Comments)

A few years ago Ofcom nudged UK broadband ISPs and mobile operators to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Nuisance Calls, which committed them to develop technical measures for “reducing the impact of unlawful nuisance calls on consumers.” The latest data shows an improvement, but not as much as we’d like.

Government Attempts to Expand UK Internet Snooping Bodies

23rd April, 2020 (8 Comments)

The Government appears to have decided that, while the country’s attention is distracted by the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) crisis, it might as well try to increase the number of bodies capable of obtaining communications data from UK phone, mobile and broadband ISPs under the Investigatory Powers Act (IPAct).

Smishing – UK Mobile Firms Unite to Stop COVID-19 Text SCAMS

22nd April, 2020 (3 Comments)

A rise in COVID-19 (Coronavirus) related text message scams (e.g. Smishing), which often attempt to trick UK mobile users into parting with their money or other sensitive personal details, has prompted mobile operators to join with other industries in order to update a trial of the new SMS SenderID Protection Registry.

Cloudflare Ignite Consumer ISP Confusion with BGP Safety Test

20th April, 2020 (21 Comments)

Over the past few days we’ve had a small but growing stream of Tweets and Emails from people who have run Cloudflare’s new ‘Is BGP Safe Yet‘ tool and are worried that their UK broadband ISP is “unsafe” because it uses the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and not RPKI. Aside from poor timing with COVID-19, the result can be misleading.