Weird Linksys router problem

By EpicFail
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EpicFail

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Hey everyone i need your help.... Ive had a Linksys BEFSR41 for about 3 years. Its never given me any problems and suited my every need as they came up. Today though something weird happend and i got disconnected from the internet. So i turned off the router... restarted my cable modem .. restarted the router and still couldnt connect.

Then i tried to plug my cable line directly into 1 of my pcs and that allowed me to get on the internet just fine.

I then reattached all the networking lines and again i couldnt connect to the internet. Then i tried to get into the router configuration screen, and surprisingly i was able to.

So i looked around and saw something very weird. HUGE!!! amounts(5k+) of ports were being redirected to 2 specific pcs on my network. Now some of you may say that someone else was playing around with it at home... but im the only one with the login info to the router.

Then i noticed that in the different setup screens stuff was set up that ive never touched in all the time ive had the router.

My questions are ... could someone "hack" (sorry for wrong terminology) into my router and mess it up like that?

And my second questions is. After resetting the router back to factory defualt settings and still not being able to go online , does this mean i need to buy a new router?

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EpicFail

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nope there was no power surge or lightning strike... it just stopped providing interent service for my network computers. if there was one the connection icon in the taskbar wouldve shown me that network was unplugged but it was/is on like everything is supposed to be still functional.

i was still able to access the routers web based interface configuration through any of the networked pcs, i just wasnt getting any internet service to them besides that.

Community Regular

raid0

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Now this is weird, I have the same model and I just got a similar problem in some way. I never have any problem with my routeur usually. Then today I got disconnect after I left the computer for 2 hours. The two others were still connected and I wasn't even able to connect to the routeur. What I did is disconnect the routeur and now it's working fine... let's hope it was a one time issue... :wacko:

Grand Master

mAcOdIn Veteran

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  Sch3mz said:
ive disconnected mine 5 times already... put in different cat5 wires and still nothing :(

Some routers have remote management turned on by defualt which would allow anyone on the internet to change the settings if they can guess your routers password(hope you changed it from admin).

So if remote management is enabled on the router than yes it is possible for it to get hacked like that.

I would do a factory reset on it and see if that fixes the problem and turn off remote management.

(They may have changed more than the port forwarding they may have changed it from a router to a gateway or something funky like that.

Enthusiast

EpicFail

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  mAcOdIn said:
I would do a factory reset on it and see if that fixes the problem and turn off remote management.

(They may have changed more than the port forwarding they may have changed it from a router to a gateway or something funky like that.

thanks for that info... you hit it right on the nose it was changed from a router to gateway... that was one of the settings ive never touched.

The router doesnt have remote managment or i cant find it. if someone knows where it is please point it out.

and after another factory reset the router still doesnt let me go online... i guess something is really messed up :(

Grand Master

mAcOdIn Veteran

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Well I would do a firmware flash upgrade and see if that fixes it.

Now by factory reset are you actually telling the router to go back to it's defualt settings or are you just pressing the reset button?

Edit: and I had it backwords it should be a gateway, that's what enables it to get you online.

Enthusiast

EpicFail

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well i hold down the reset button and i see a red light come up on the router.. it stays there for about 20 seconds then the router resets... i think thats a factory reset if im not mistaken.

i did a firmware upgrade just now... and that actually worked im back to a functioning router :)

thanks for your help macodin, i really wasnt willing to buy another router.

Grand Master

mAcOdIn Veteran

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Great news. I looked in the manual and "remote Management" should be under the Advanced tab, then the Filters tab.

Turn that off. You will still be able to change any router setting from behind the router, but now no computer on the other side(the internet) will be able to.

And you were doing the reset correct I don't know why that didn't work.

But glad you got it back.

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