'Plug and play' bug causing major hacking risk

Bugs in “plug and play” networking technology expose tens of millions of devices to attack by hackers, researchers with a security software maker have said.

The problem lies in computer routers and other networking equipment that use a commonly employed standard known as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), which makes it easy for networks to identify and communicate with equipment, reducing the amount of work it takes to set up networks.

But in a white paper to be released today by security software maker Rapid7, the firm says it has discovered between 40 million and 50 million devices that were vulnerable to attack due to three separate sets of problems the firm's researchers have identified with the UPnP standard. The long list of devices includes products from manufacturers including Belkin, D-Link, Cisco Systems Inc's Linksys division and Netgear, but representatives for Belkin, D-Link, Linksys and Netgear could not be reached for comment on Monday evening.