My brother-in-law said he never updates his router firmware because 'it still works'

We were talking about his new smart home gadgets, and he said he hasn't touched his router settings since he bought it three years ago. I told him that's like leaving your front door unlocked because the lock still turns. I read a report from last year that said over 70% of home router attacks used known flaws that patches fixed months earlier. But he thinks if he isn't a target, it doesn't matter. Is it better to leave a working system alone, or is skipping firmware updates just asking for trouble?

3 comments

3 Comments

nancy_king297d agoMost Upvoted

Wait, three years without a single update? That's absolutely wild to me. My router nags me every few months and I still feel guilty putting it off for a week.

lily_cooper7d ago

Oh does your router actually nag you? Mine just sits there being evil and I ignore it. Look, I get why people think updates are good but honestly if the thing is working why mess with it? Ive had my current router for like 4 years without a single update and its been totally fine. The only time I ever had a problem was when I caved and did an update and it broke my wifi for three days. Had to factory reset everything and redo my whole network setup. It was a nightmare. Plus those update notices are full of scary language about security holes but half the time its just the company trying to sell you something or push new features you dont want. If its not broken dont fix it, thats my motto.

nancy_wood7d ago

That's the thing though, your router doesn't have to be "broken" for bad guys to brute force their way in. I've seen people get their whole network hijacked just from an old firmware exploit, factory reset won't fix that.