Router virus?

[JJLT76]

hi i have a quick Q, is it possible for your wireless router to obtain a virus, or some type of malicious software in it, i ask this because one of my friends who is the fardest thing from beign a computer guy , said he got a virus that was stuck to his wireless router and it let another person control his computer thru the router. i just wanted to know if something like this is possible, by the way i have a 2wire wireless router with built in firewall that was given to me when i got SBC/AT&T high speed internet.

 

[Eraserhead]

This seems highly unlikely if he is running Windows it's on his PC, especially as he doesn't know much about computers.

Hell even if he was a Unix Admin and was using a Mac/Linux, I'd say that it was the computer.

 

[JJLT76]

so its impossible to have a virus in your router? so thats means i should never worry about my router beign infected and damaging my soon to be purchased macbook?

 

[mkrishnan]

so its impossible to have a virus in your router? so thats means i should never worry about my router beign infected and damaging my soon to be purchased macbook?

I don't know if you should *worry* about it, but it's not technically impossible. Many routers run some variant of Linux. It can in principle have flaws, particularly if it is allowing a lot of incoming traffic from the outside. There are examples of vulnerabilities like this:

http://secunia.com/advisories/24962/

But exploits for routers are pretty unheard of, especially because the majority of them are set to not allow configuration from the extranet and have most of their ports closed by the NAT.

 

[GimmeSlack12]

You're router can't get a virus. But if you don't change the default password on your router then someone else can login to it and lock you out of it.