Botched Asus Update Kicks Routers Offline Worldwide, Company Apologizes
You’re not the only one experiencing network connectivity issues with your Asus router this week. As originally reported, Peep computerASUS routers around the world mysteriously went offline on or around May 16th, but the company didn’t say anything about the cause of the problem.
However, ASUS acknowledged the issue today and wrote the following about the issue: Product Security Advisory Support Page“During routine security maintenance, our technical team discovered an error in the configuration of our server configuration files, which may cause network connectivity interruptions on some of our routers.”
The company further said that the team “addressed server issues urgently,” and that routers that previously booted offline should now be fully operational.
Asus customers are grateful to have their routers working perfectly, but many are wondering what caused this global outage in the first place. This doesn’t appear to be a router firmware update gone awry and wreaking havoc. Instead, redditor TheDeviceMangler hypothesized that the pushed update for ASUS AiProtection, the built-in security daemon, contained corrupted definition files. This component is updated more frequently, independent of the device’s firmware.
According to TheDeviceMangler, “Once the router automatically updated to pick up a corrupt definition file, it ran out of filesystem space and memory and started crashing.”
AiProtection is a key software security component for Asus routers powered by Trend Micro. This security suite can automatically block access to known malicious websites that propagate malware, spam, and adware. It also has a two-way intrusion prevention system that thwarts DDoS attacks. In addition, it prevents infected devices connected to your router from falling into botnet traps. AiProtection can also send push notifications to your smartphone when an infection of your device is detected.
I currently have an Asus router with AiProtection enabled, whose last definition file (version 2.352) was installed on May 13th. Luckily my router for some reason didn’t download a failed definition file affecting other her Asus customers around. globe.
Asus has not confirmed that a definition flaw was the cause of the global outage, but said most users should be able to get it up and running with a manual reboot. However, if that doesn’t work, the company recommends saving the router’s configuration settings, doing a factory reset, and reuploading the configuration file.
ASUS is sorry about the service interruption, even if the apology and fix are three days late. “We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused by this incident, and we will do our best to prevent a recurrence of such an incident.”