Hackers Goal 81% of Routers with Default Admin Passwords

The most recent 2025 Broadband Genie router safety survey reveals alarming traits in community safety consciousness amongst web customers.

This yr’s outcomes, whereas exhibiting marginal enhancements in some areas, underscore the persistent hole between realizing how one can safe a community and really taking motion.

The analysis crew performed their fourth complete router safety survey to match attitudes and behaviors throughout 2018 by way of 2025.

Out of three,242 surveyed customers, the findings display that regardless of seven years of prior analysis highlighting safety dangers, nearly all of households stay susceptible to cybercriminals by way of unchanged default router configurations.

Earlier research constantly confirmed that the overwhelming majority of web customers have been unaware of the safety implications related to leaving default settings intact.

The 2025 knowledge means that whereas some progress has been made, essential vulnerabilities stay widespread throughout residential networks.

Firmware Stay Essential Considerations

Essentially the most regarding discovering entails the administrator password, with 81% of respondents by no means altering their router’s default credentials.

This represents solely a marginal 5% enchancment from 2024 ranges, indicating that the overwhelming majority of customers are leaving their networks inclined to unauthorized entry.

Default router credentials are publicly accessible info, making them trivial targets for malicious actors in search of community entry.

Equally troubling is the 84% of web customers who’ve by no means up to date their router firmware. Firmware updates tackle essential safety vulnerabilities and supply important patches that shield units from identified exploits.

The development over the previous six years exhibits fewer individuals prioritizing firmware updates, although 2025 did see a slight 5% enchancment year-over-year.

Regardless of this minor progress, leaving firmware outdated stays a widespread vulnerability vector that exposes networks to compromise.

Community naming conventions additionally current safety considerations, with 85% of respondents sustaining their router’s default community title.

Whereas this represents a 4% enchancment in comparison with 2024, it stays beneath 2018 ranges. Default community names like “SKY12345” or “Linksys-7890” make it significantly simpler for attackers to establish particular router fashions and goal identified vulnerabilities related to these units.

Information Hole Stays the Main Barrier

Maybe most revealing is that 79% of survey respondents indicated they know how one can change router settings, but 73% don’t perceive why they need to make these adjustments.

This important consciousness hole has endured for the previous three years, suggesting that person schooling efforts have did not successfully talk the dangers related to default configurations.

He famous that cybercriminals exploit firmware vulnerabilities to achieve entry to private info and launch subsequent phishing assaults.

Moreover, solely 31% of respondents commonly verify which units are related to their dwelling networks, leaving potential unauthorized entry undetected.

The survey exhibits that 69% of customers have by no means modified their Wi-Fi password, and 47% have by no means adjusted any manufacturing unit settings in any way.

Nonetheless, this 47% determine represents the bottom price for the reason that first 2018 examine, indicating a 5% enchancment from 2024.

McAfee Senior Safety Researcher Oliver Devane emphasised that routers function the first gateway to all related dwelling units, making their safety paramount.

The answer requires coordinated efforts from web service suppliers, producers, and customers to prioritize community safety by way of password adjustments, firmware updates, and common community monitoring.

The trail ahead calls for elevated producer transparency, simplified safety configuration processes, and sustained public schooling campaigns to slender the awareness-to-action hole that at the moment defines residential router safety.

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