Homeland Security: Disable Upnp as tens of millions are at risk

Soak your computer in a bathtub full of water while it's plugged in. Bubbles are optional.

Homeland Security is a joke. If they had their way, we'd all be getting scanned and dog sniffed if we went outside, our phones would be bugged 24/7 and little old ladies would get body cavity searches at the bus stop.

If people want to be that paranoid as to listen to HS, then just disconnect from the rest of the world and move into a cave somewhere.

I thought it worth mentioning.

For mine, Homeland Secuity and other such organisations find... er, invent shit like this just to keep themselves employed and wielding power over fightened, intimidated people who stll think there are Reds under the bed..

And we all know that such departments are created to provide jobs for the 'boys'.... friends of politicians who are ex-military thugs and have eff all chance of getting a job anywhere else.

Nah, Homeland Security have taken them off the 'to search' list.... they're mean spirited when interfered with and are full of gas, making cavity searches too hazardous for operatives.  Yeah, HS handles them differently now!  They give them a shot that feigns Alzheimers and they take them to the nearest aged care facility, where the nursing staff can deal with the gas and bein lashed out at with umbellas.

Yup, them Homeland Security fellers are sure tough bastards... read a while ago where they intimidated a 15 y/o girl into exposing her breasts at an airport pat-down.  Should never happen like that, not when there's scanners and crap that can see everything on and about you.

I think they're referring to the ability to hack into whole networks via printers and other PnP devices. The UPnP software is vulnerable, but so are printers and other devices updated from non-OEM sources. They talk about zombie botnets and DDoS attacks.

The infection can be very subtle however, coming in an email (for example, even from someone you know), and target a network device like a printer from which point it can infect the other computers on the network, to milk them for info.

It can be even more subtle infecting just the printer and since they have hard drives, and net access, cause memory dumps from the printers (all the files printed from them) to be sent to info harvesters. 

My printer is only ever plugged in and turned on [inside the router firewall] when I have a printing job.  Once that is completed I turn it off and unplug it at the wall to save power... LEDs and all that.

Uvah, you would disable it in services.

But really, if you do, you'll have problems every time you use a flash drive, etc. Anything that plugs into a USB port, etc.

May as well unplug the computer. 

Reminds me of Y2K lol.

And, as an added bonus, anything that depends on Upnp will also fail if you disable it.

Me I just wanna disable GUPnP.... Google's Unwelcome Professional nosey Parkers.  Bastards, they watch everything, so word of warning, don't take you internet enabled notebook or tablet with you to the toilet, bedroom... anywhere you wanna do.... um, stuff you don't want the whole world to see.

The other one to disable would be GPGnA... Government Pricks Generally nosing Around.

Starkers, Abelsoft has a thing just for that.

https://www.abelssoft.net/apps/googleclean

Funny thing, I got an email for that yesterday, wanting me to buy it.  Yeah, I purchased something from Abelssoft a while back and elected to get the newsletters to inform me of new offerings and upgrades/updates, etc.

As for the GPGnA, you need a thorough internet cleaner and an effective suppository to remove traces of anything that can be used against you.

I read the article over at LifeHacker http://lifehacker.com/5980126/5-security-holes-almost-everyones-vulnerable-to

Seems what's most vulnerable are servers and it tells you how to disable the upnp.

Uvah, in reply 7, services, you right click UPnP, choose properties, disabled, apply and ok.

But doing so will cause many problems.

Doing so on a server wouldn't.

I'm not about to do that RnD, Uh uh. I may be crazy but I ain't stupid.

Sheesh! All this Homeland Security BS is getting ridiculous!

If you want to check your Router vulnerability go to Shields UP :-

https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2

click proceed then click the UPnP exposure button.

There is no "UPnP exposure button".

All this nonsense just reminds me of what's involved in maintaining a good solid connection. I'm leaning towards working online so this kind of info is useful.

When you click the proceed button on the first page the next page has the button on it.

I just tried this out and got an all clear... they could not penetrate my machine through UPnP... so good news for this household.

I don't have a router so.......no problem.