I’ve NEVER liked UPNP…. now I have another reason….
I remember the first Windows XP vulnerability was a Upnp vulnerability. I have made one of my first visits on any new XP system a visit to grc.com to disable it on an XP workstation. But, it’s the great thing – makes life so much easier for setting up network devices. “You just don’t like it cause it puts you out of business….” It looks like Upnp is a really “malicious hacker friendly” kind of thing, especially when it’s installed and running on a gateway router… let’s say you have a hardware firewall with Upnp. Normally, you plug in an IP camera and maybe the IP camera uses Upnp to open a port so it’s accessible from the outside world. Nice, simple right? Well… what if you download a “browsing experience enhancement toolbar” that opens up another port on the firewall so you can act as a mail relay?
Nice, simple, easy…. Or, what if you’re little firewall is happily cloaking traffic from one internet machine to another internet machine. (Maybe even LONG after your spyware infestation has been cleaned up.) Or, what if you’re companies hvac controls are upnp enabled? is it hot in here? There are some GOOD details at securityview.org on these Upnp vulnerabilties the core of it is that authentication may be in the standard, but it doesn’t appear to be used.
Please, disable Upnp on your networked devices. Your life will be nice and simple if you’re not relaying mail for spammers or cloaking traffic for who knows what. And yes that means, you should either learn how to do port forwards manually, or pay someone to set them up for you. Sorry, but that’s the best way to actually have control over it at this point.