The Australian government just told thousands of people to throw out their routers — despite experts warning it…
- The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) has bricked thousands of routers
- Flashing alternative firmware like OpenWRT is an option that the ACCC has ignored
- Disposed SamKnows SK-WB8 routers can pose a security risk if they’re not first wiped with a factory reset
The Australian government’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC), has initiated the bricking of some 4,000 routers, rolled out across the country in 2020 in order to collect information on broadband speeds.
Issued as part of the Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) program, the routers were whiteboxes from SamKnows, a subsidiary of Cisco, and given a finite lifespan. That date was reached in June 2026, with the SamKnows SK-WB8 routers remotely disabled on June 30.
As a consequence, Australians are likely to toss the bricked routers, resulting in a sharp increase in e-waste. In doing so, they risk breaches of digital security if the routers...
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