BT has sealed a critical security hole in the Home Hub that offered hackers full control of the router, which is in about two million UK homes.

The firm's latest update has kneecapped part of the router's firmware called Remote Assistance, which gives customer support staff admin rights to investigate problems.

A BT spokesman said service will be unaffected by disabling the feature, since support can still access the Home Hub using the separate Remote Access feature. "Remote Assistance" will still appear in the router's menu page, but the link will return an error.

Earlier this month we reported (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/09/bt_home_hub_vuln/) how researchers had exploited a firmware bug to hurdle the Hub's admin password authentication. All it required was for a naive surfer to hit a malicious link.

BT's inhouse security team quickly launched an investigation. The firm had been criticised by the same researchers for failing to respond to a vulnerability in another of its routers reported last year.

BT's update on the Home Hub flap is here (http://bt.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/bt.cfg/php/enduser/cci/bt_adp.php?p_sid=B612fPOi&cat_lvl1=346&cat_lvl2=401&cat_lvl3=407&cat_lvl4=751&p_cv=4.751&p_cats=346,401,407,751&p_faqid=10492). ®

Related stories

Yet another hole found in BT Wi-Fi router (28 May 2008)
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/05/28/bt_home_hub_password/
Spotted in the wild: Home router attack serves up counterfeit pages (23 January 2008)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/23/pharming_attack_in_the_wild/
UK's number one router open to VoIP hijacking (21 January 2008)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/21/bt_home_hub_voip_hijacking/
BT jobs axe slashes profits (8 November 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/08/bt_q2_2007/
BT banks on windmills to throw greens off its scent (30 October 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/30/bt_green_power/
BT launches Home Hub backdoor investigation (9 October 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/09/bt_home_hub_hole_response/
BT home router wide open to hijackers (9 October 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/09/bt_home_hub_vuln/
BT says its Wi-Fi kibbutz isn't targeting 3G (5 October 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/05/bt_fon_wimax/
BT aims to make UK a Wi-Fi kibbutz (4 October 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/04/bt_fon_wifi_kibbutz/
BT says 'enough' on GPL (29 January 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/29/bt_says_enough_gpl/
BT still 'not fulfilling' GPL (25 January 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/bt_linux_config/
BT's Home Hub runs on Linux (22 January 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/22/bt_breaking_gpl/
BT Fusion goes Wi-Fi (8 January 2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/08/bt_fusion_wifi/