It's 2015 and default creds can brick SOHO routers

A hacker has detailed a series of tricks that can silently reboot or brick routers or activate admins functions.

Many routers including Netgear and Surfboard models look to be affected, with most attacks requiring just victims' default universal credentials to be applied. Applications security bod Joseph Giron detailed how victims could be knocked offline or routers bricked.

"The Surfboard cable modem offers little in functionality besides rebooting unless of course I wanted to be malicious and remove all settings on the cable modem and essentially turn it into a door stop until the thing can be activated again by the ISP," Giron said.