Cpt_Teemo wrote: »

Didn't know where to put this since no general discussion for everything but an article just got released about to reset your routers to factory state

http://fortune.com/2018/05/26/fbi-warning-russian-malware-routers/

Thanks for the heads-up. You can also post it in the General Forum section: General Discussion

(1) The article uses the term "rebooting", which is a bit ambiguous. It can be interpreted as simply unplugging the electrical power cord to turn the router off, then restore power to turn it on again, like a "hardware reboot" for a computer. Turning the power off for a while, then restoring it, is more specifically called "power cycling" the router. That can resolve various problems related to its connection with an ISP network.

But power-cycling the router is not what you need to do. Power-cycling is not likely to get rid of any malware. More specifically, it will not restore any configuration settings that have been changed by a hacker or a malware program. To do that, you must reset the router.

(2) To reset a router to its original default "factory state", find a hole in the back which has a button at the bottom of it. Use a ballpoint pin, or something similar, to press that button. The ensuing re-set should eliminate any alterations to the router's configuration that might have been made by a hacker or by malware. It will also restore any configuration setting which you have changed to the original default.

Afterward, you must also re-configure the router -- at the least, to change the default password and to specify a user-name. People often overlook doing that when they install a router. The default password is almost always "admin". The user-name data is usually empty (blank), and not required to log-on to access the router settings.

Everyone who knows anything about a particular router knows the default password. So hackers and malware can easily gain access to the router if you don't specify a secure password and don't specify a user-name. With both of them specified, it is much harder for an intruder to gain control of the router.