Issue with DLink 2520u adsl modem-firmware getting hacked repeatedly.

[quicky008]

Dsl 2520u is not an eol'd product-its still being sold by dlink all over india and is quite popular amongst people who use an adsl connection for internet access.

The reason they didn't respond to my queries could be because either they've an extremely apathetic and lackadaisical attitude towards their customers and therefore they don't even bother to reply,unless perhaps the problem is extremely serious in nature or they're dealing with someone important,who if ignored could potentially cause them a lot of trouble,or their technical support staff is extremely inept & lacks adequate technical knowhow,so they simply have no idea of how they're supposed to solve problems that are a bit abstruse or complex by nature.

Anyway,i'm thankful to you and topgear for lending me your valued advice and suggestions-the modem is working fine as of now,lets hope it will stay that way and not get hacked again anytime soon.

 

[patkim]

The reason they didn't respond to my queries could be because either they've an extremely apathetic and lackadaisical attitude towards their customers and therefore they don't even bother to reply,unless perhaps the problem is extremely serious in nature or they're dealing with someone important,who if ignored could potentially cause them a lot of trouble,or their technical support staff is extremely inept & lacks adequate technical knowhow,so they simply have no idea of how they're supposed to solve problems that are a bit abstruse or complex by nature.

I have this experience with almost all customer cares. Most importantly 'Fitness for Right Purpose' is missing from most of the consumer products. They just work but not how you expect them to work. I have DIR 615 router and there are at least a dozen bugs in it. Ironically in my observation updating firmware fixes one but breaks some other!!

Glad to know that this forum helped you solve your issue to a manageable level.

I would just suggest that you ping your router WAN IP from other internet connection and check if your router responds. Ideally by default as a security measure it should not respond.

 

[quicky008]

^thanks patkim,i too am glad that my problem appears to have been solved for now,thanks in no small part to the stellar advice given by Topgear.Do you know of any way to ping an ip address from an android phone(via its gprs/3g connection).Does android offer any utilities/tools like command prompt of windows that can be used to ping an address?

- - - Updated - - -

i tried to ping my current ip address via Ping.eu-it reported that although 9 packets were sent,none were received so all packets were lost-so i suppose my router didn't respond to the ping command,right?

 

[topgear]

Glad to know your issue has been resolved. But D-Link totally lacks of customer support. They just released a half baked product on market which is well notorious for getting hacked from a long time. D-Link never released a firmwire for older hardware version. This clearly shows in the first place how good D-Links support is for a hardware they sell which is a very crucial component for privacy and security. So you can guess already how good D-Links customer support is and what type of qualified technician they take as employee.

BTW, As for the ping issue - Are you using a rooted phone ? Anyway, You can use Termux which is a very powerful command line app for android or install some app like these :

Fing - Network Tools – Android Apps on Google Pla
IP Tools: Network utilities – Android Apps on Google Pla
PingTools Network Utilities - Android Apps on Google Pla

 

[patkim]

Generally the IP address range of ISP's is known and hackers may ping the ranges as one of the ways to know if the connection is active. With most home users having WiFi, poorly configured routers become easy target for hacking. It's good to know that ping is not responding and seems disabled in your router settings may be as a default.

 

[quicky008]

Yes,its evident that dlink's customer support is truly abysmal-despite releasing a glitchy and flawed product that contains serious lapses in security they haven't taken a single step to rectify this issue,even newer versions of this router (as well as some other dlink modems like the dsl 2600u)contain this flaw but no official firmware update has been issued by them till date to patch this serious loophole,even though this particular exploit had been discovered long ago and and its characteristics are fairly well documented.

If they were incapable of delivering a fix they could have atleast acknowledged that their product had this flaw and suggested a step by step method to fix it manually by changing the required parameters in the router's config page-but it seems they're not even the least bothered by their customers' problems and so they didn't have the decency to do that either.

Its only because of the methods that have been discovered by some enterprising individuals who were fed up with dlink's poor customer support to fix this problem has it been possible for users who were plagued by this issue to continue using this device(like me),otherwise they would've had no choice but to toss it into the garbage! Even their tech-support staff seem to be totally incompetent and absolutely lacking in any sense of professional ethics-when someone asks for their help they don't even have the courtesy to reply or offer him any kind of support!

So which company can be considered to be the most reliable when it comes to networking devices?I thought tplink was better,until i read several complaints on sites like amazon.in by users who had faced numerous problems with their products(including the very same exploit that i encountered with my dlink router) but had received no help whatsoever from tplink,despite complaining to them repeatedly and so they were asking everyone boycott their products.Is netgear any good?