![\"Alexey](\"https:\/\/www.tomgrimshaw.com\/tomsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Alexey_and_the_Routers.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
In 2018, MikroTik, a Latvian maker of networking gear, was dealing with a serious security flaw in its routers. A fix existed, but tens of thousands of devices around the world were still running old software, and criminal botnets were scanning the internet for them.<\/p>\n
Once inside, the attackers put the routers to work mining cryptocurrency and joining coordinated attacks, often without the owners having any idea. A security expert who used the name Alexey watched this happen and decided the owners weren’t going to patch the problem fast enough on their own.<\/p>\n
So he wrote an automated script that went looking for the same vulnerable routers, logged into them through the same weakness and changed each one’s firewall rules to block the ports the attackers were using. He didn’t look at anyone’s data, harvest passwords or install software of his own. Before leaving each device he left a brief note explaining the change and urging the owner to update.<\/p>\n
Alexey said his only goal was to protect ordinary internet users, but what he’d done was still unauthorized access to other people’s equipment. The episode split the security world, with some praising him as a digital vigilante and others arguing that breaking into someone’s device without permission is wrong whatever the motive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 2018, MikroTik, a Latvian maker of networking gear, was dealing with a serious security flaw in its routers. A fix existed, but tens of thousands of devices around the world were still running old software, and criminal botnets were scanning the internet for them. Once inside, the attackers put the routers to work mining … <\/p>\n