D-Link
More info
- Released
- 1986
- Type
- Networking company
Taiwanese router maker that shows up in security advisories more often than in product reviews.
Founded in Taipei in 1986 as Datex Systems and renamed D-Link in 1994. Cheap switches, routers, cameras and NAS boxes made the brand a default for homes and small businesses worldwide.
The security record is long. In 2013 researcher Craig Heffner found a backdoor: set your browser's User-Agent to xmlset_roodkcableoj28840ybtide and the login page let you straight in. Read backwards, it says "edit by 04882 joel backdoor". In 2015 the company's private code-signing key shipped inside a published firmware, and in 2017 the US FTC sued D-Link over its security practices. These days the answer to a new flaw in an older model is often that the device is end-of-life and should be replaced.