The OpenWrt project has revealed that an attacker has managed to access information about its online forum users over the weekend, by compromising the account of a forum administrator.
“The intruder was able to download a copy of the user list that contains email addresses, handles, and other statistical information about the users of the forum,” they shared.
“Although we do not believe the intruder could download the database, from an abundance of caution, we are following the advice of the Discourse community and have reset all passwords on the Forum, and flushed any API keys.”
What is OpenWrt?
The OpenWrt project oversees the development of OpenWrt, an open-source, Linux-based embedded operating system/firmaware for a variety of routers and gateways, which can also be used on smartphones, laptops and personal computers.
“People install OpenWrt because they believe it works better than the stock firmware from their vendor. They find it is more stable, offers more features, is more secure and has better support,” OpenWrt developers point out.
The project releases regular bug fixes and security updates – even for devices that are now unsupported by their original manufacturers.
More about the OpenWRT data breach
The OpenWrt project said that while the password of the compromised forum admin account was strong, the account was not additionally secured with 2-factor authentication.
They also assured users that the OpenWRT Wiki, which houses info about the project, documentation and download links, has not been compromised. The OpenWrt forum credentials are independent of the OpenWrt Wiki, they said, and “there is no reason to believe there has been any compromise to the Wiki credentials.”
The main worry is that the intruder may use the user list to send out phishing emails aimed at compromising the accounts or systems of the forum’s regular users, some of which work for companies that manufacture devices and develop software that can run (on) OpenWrt.
Forum users have been advised to be on the lookout for phishing emails and to access the forum independently of a link in an email. They will also have to reset their password and if they use Github login/OAuth key, they should reset/refresh it.