San Francisco, CA, January 21, 2025 —4.2M hosts, including VPNs and routers, are exposed to silent cyberattacks due to flawed tunneling protocols. Experts urge immediate security upgrades.
A shocking new report has revealed vulnerabilities in tunneling protocols, exposing 4.2 million internet hosts to silent yet devastating cyberattacks. These flaws affect VPN servers, routers, and mobile network gateways across key nations, including the U.S., China, France, Japan, and Brazil.
Researchers at Top10VPN, collaborating with KU Leuven professor Mathy Vanhoef, uncovered that unencrypted protocols such as GRE6 and 6in4 allow attackers to hijack systems for anonymous attacks, including denial-of-service (DoS) campaigns. Simon Migliano, head of research at Top10VPN said:
The risk is enormous. Vulnerable systems can be weaponized as proxies for malicious traffic, bypassing security measures.
The attackers exploit these flaws by injecting malicious packets into vulnerable systems, tricking them into forwarding the attack under their trusted IP addresses. The result? Network congestion, disrupted services, and potential exposure to man-in-the-middle attacks.
One victim, a small business in Florida, suffered severe losses after their network was overwhelmed. The owner, who requested anonymity said:
Our systems crashed, taking hours to restore. The financial damage was significant.
The CERT Coordination Center advised implementing robust countermeasures like IPsec or WireGuard to encrypt traffic. Deep packet inspection and strict traffic filtering were also recommended to block unencrypted tunneling packets.
Cybersecurity analyst Jacob Reed emphasized the urgency: “This isn’t just about technical flaws. It’s about securing critical infrastructure and user trust.”
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