A security vulnerability in "smart" power plugs can be exploited to infiltrate local computer networks. The flaw, spotted in Belkin's Wemo Insight smartplugs, would potentially allow an attacker to not only manipulate the plug itself, but also allow hopping to other devices connected to the same Wi-Fi home network. …

Hon Hai Precision Industry's Foxconn Interconnect Technology (FIT) subsidiary has announced a deal to slurp Belkin International for US$866 million in cash. As well as Belkin's range of own-branded network, cable, cases, wireless networking, and other accessories, the acquisition will also bring the Wemo home automation, …

It's been a year since Apple officially launched its internet-of-things smart-home service – an event that we noted at the time was somewhat undermined by the fact that there were virtually no products that worked with it. Twelve months later and two weeks out from its annual conference, Apple has finally snagged its first big …

Black Hat EU Security researchers have worked out how to hack into a smartphone and turn it into a tracking device by abusing its pairing with a Belkin home automation device. Joe Tanen and Scott Tenaglia of Invincea Labs were able to root a WeMo device before injecting code into the WeMo Android app from a compromised WeMo device. The …

Belkin's home routers can be commandeered by hackers, thanks to a Telnet backdoor, a cross-site request forgery (CSRF) vulnerability and other bugs, we're told. Security researcher Rahul Pratap Singh warns that the Belkin N150's builtin web server, provided so users can configure their kit, doesn't perform enough checks on …

IoT World 2015 "In order for any internet of things hardware manufacturer to survive, we can't sell hundreds of thousands of units, we have to sell millions," says Jason Johnson, CEO of smart-lock manufacturer August. After years of talking about the "internet of things", this year CES decided 2015 was actually the year of the internet of …

A researcher who last year turned up weak WPS PIN protection in D-Link broadband modems has found the same problem exists on Belkin devices. The writer at embedded systems hacker hangout /dev/ttyS0, who goes by the name of Craig, says the upshot of his latest work is the same as previously: it demonstrates that like D-Link, …

Breaking Fad For an awfully long time, there have been just two types of lights, more or less. There were ordinary incandescent bulbs and there were fluorescent ones. Sometimes, there were fancy circular fluorescent ones, but that was about as complicated as it got – save for fiddly things like the battle between weirdo continental screw …

Product Roundup It's that time again. Get ready to dig deep into your pockets, and spend your hard earned cash on gifts for the kids, the nieces and nephews, the neighbour's sprog and just about everyone else who's flung their arms round your knees and cooed "Unkle" appealingly. If you're torn between bankruptcy and a whole string of people …

Belkin has patched a vulnerability in a dual band router that allowed attackers on guest networks to gain root access using an automated tool. The flaw reported overnight targeted the Belkin N750 dual-band router – which was launched in 2011 and is still sold by the company and other commerce sites. IntegrityPT consultant …

Updated A large number of Belkin routers were knocked off the internet on Tuesday, owing to an as-yet-unexplained glitch. It's not known how many routers were affected, but it was a lot of them and quite possibly worldwide, all at once. Complaints began popping up on Twitter shortly after midnight Eastern time, with some customers …

Product round-up The once-sage advice that wired networking was the only way to guarantee suitable speeds for streaming HD video, large file transfers, or buffer-free HD video playback no longer holds true – or does it? The latest wireless standard, 802.11ac, delivers significantly improved speeds over 802.11n thanks to greater bandwidth and …

Gird your loins router-makers: a throng of hackers are set to pry apart your woefully insecure hardware in a competition to expose bad firmware and hard-coded credentials. The competition will take place at the DEF CON 22 conference and glories in the name "SOHOpelessly Broken". The event is the brainchild of the Electronic …

Belkin has published fixes for the flaws discovered by IOActive in its WeMo Home Automation system, and is urging users to download updated versions of its control apps from either the AppStore or Google Play. As discussed by The Register yesterday, the bugs opened a wide range of holes in the kit, including opportunities to …

CES 2014 Networking gear maker Linksys has resurrected one of its most popular, customizable routers – the WRT54G – with a new version that takes advantage of the latest wireless technologies. The Belkin subsidiary revealed the new device, a spruced-up Wi-Fi router based on its venerable WRT54G design, at the Consumer Electronics Show …

Apple WWDC If the word from the Apple WWDC is to be believed, we’re just months away from hooking up all our peripherals using Thunderbolt 2 cables. Funny that, as I thought this was supposed to happen when the original Thunderbolt ports appeared on Macs back in 2011. Even though this Apple-Intel interface love-in can be found on PCs too …

Cisco has found a buyer for its unwanted and unstrategic Linksys low-end networking brand, in the form of accessories and small networks player Belkin. Both companies have issued gushing notifications of the deal, but haven't let it be known how much cash or other fungible instruments will change hands to make it happen. It's …

Update The default WPA2-PSK passphrase used in some Belkin routers simply replaces a character of the device’s MAC address with another hecxadecimal character, according to security blogger Jakob Lell. Lell describes the situation as follows: Each of the eight characters of the default passphrase are created by substituting a …