GoKawiilProspective router customers just got a little more breathing room, as the Federal Communications Commission will allow foreign-made routers to continue receiving software and firmware updates until at least Jan. 1, 2029, according to an extension announced on May 8.
When the FCC announced its sweeping ban of foreign-made Wi-Fi routers on March 23, it said companies could continue issuing security patches only to previously approved models until March 1, 2027. As nearly every router available in the US is considered “foreign-made” by the FCC’s standards, this left US customers facing the prospect of buying a new router only to find out it could become outdated within a year.
“A large percentage of networking routers are not produced in the United States. Therefore, a lot of those are going to turn into pumpkins in a year, unless they extend this waiver,” Alan Butler, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told me at the time.
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Less than two months later, we’ve already seen some significant backpedaling from the FCC’s initial blanket ban. Along with the deadline for software updates being extended by two years, two notable router companies, Netgear and Eero, have been granted exemptions from the FCC’s ban altogether -- moves that came with mandatory timelines for onshoring their manufacturing processes.
“There is no domestic supply chain for a final product right now,” says Kevin O’Hanlon, a vice president at the industry trade group Global Electronics Association. “This extension is a little bit of a relief, but at the same time, it doesn't change the fundamental timeline that the industry is working under to get technology to the market. There's just not a lot we can do to speed that up.”
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The FCC’s move to ban an entire category of consumer products was absolutely unprecedented, but it wasn’t necessarily unprovoked. The commission said that routers produced abroad were “directly implicated” in the Volt, Flax and Salt Typhoon cyberattacks over the past several years, and the cybersecurity experts I spoke with said routers have become an increasingly attractive point of entry for hackers.
“The router sits in such a privileged position within any network, but particularly in the home network. All of your communication, all of your traffic, has to pass through that device,” says Rik Ferguson, vice president of security intelligence at cybersecurity company Forescout.
But without the ability to receive security updates that address vulnerabilities exploited in cyberattacks, most routers would have become less safe to use after the ban, not more. Last month, the FBI took the unusual step of remotely resetting out-of-date routers that had stopped receiving software updates.
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