D-Link Adds CAPTCHA to Home Routers
In an effort to protect against automated attacks, D-Link has added CAPTCHA protection to its line of home and small office routers. Most of us have dealt with CAPTCHA at some point in time, but this is the first time we’ve seen it on a router. CAPTCHA, which stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart, requires a user to enter a small amount of text displayed in an image to help prevent automated registration and fraud.
D-Link says the new protections are being added in response to an increasingly sophisticated crop of malware. In the D-Link routers, the CAPTCHA system is designed to thwart worms that could access the routers and alter the victim’s DNS records to divert traffic through the attacker’s network. Although CAPTCHA won’t necessarily prevent all intrusions, it can provide an extra level of security and protection.
"Unlike other brands, the majority of D-Link routers are not as easy to be compromised since our design is proprietary. However, we're excited to be the first in the market to announce we have taken the initiative to implement CAPTCHA into our routers, thus providing yet another layer of security to our customers," said AJ Wang, chief technology officer of D-Link.
CAPTCHA is available through a firmware upgrade for many popular D-Link router models, including the DIR-615, DIR-625, DIR-628, DIR-655, DIR-825, DIR-855, DIR-685, and DGL-4500. To upgrade your router with the latest firmware and CAPTCHA, visit support.dlink.com.
