A significant vulnerability has been found in the latest version (WNDR3700v4) of Netgear’s N600 Wireless Dual-Band Gigabit Router.  Per the researcher with Tactical Network Solutions that discovered the flaw, it is “trivially exploitable” and allows the attacker to disable authentication, open up a backdoor (telnet session), and then return the router to its original state so that the user never knows it was open.  According to PC World, other routers may be affected as well.

To mitigate the risk:

• get the latest patch from Netgear (the Shodan database still shows at least 600 unpatched routers with the WNDR3700v4 hardware revision)
• disable remote administration of the router (always)
• use strong WPA2 pass phrases
• don’t allow strangers on your network