Home Networking

198 readers

1 users here now

A community to help people learn, install, set up or troubleshoot their home network equipment and solutions.

Rules

Please stay on topic.
Please use the search function to look for keywords related to what you want to ask before posting since most common issues have been answered.
No Ads. This community is for support and discussion. Ads and self promotion are not welcome here.
No product reviews or announcements. If you have a question about a product, be specific about what you want to know.
Be civil. Don't be a jerk. Not being a jerk is surprisingly easy.
No URL shorteners. URL shorteners tend to hide the real use of a link. For this reason, please use normal links, even if they're long.
No affiliate links.
No gatekeeping. With profession shall come professionalism. Extend help without judging others for their ignorance. The same goes for downvoting of comments or posts for "stupid questions" or not being as knowledgeable as others.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Can a simple switch be a security issue? (alien.top)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hello there,

during black friday i've bought a tenda 2,5G switch on Amazon for a good price to replace my old 1Gbit one.

TEM2010F 8-Port 2.5G Ethernet Switch-Tenda-All For Better NetWorking (tendacn.com)

THe performance between my proxmox-nodes increased from 114 MB/s to 270MB/s.

But seeing that Tenda is a chinese manufacturer i've doubts about the security.
This switch is the central point in the network. And i dont want some malware or data sniffing device in such a central position.

I'm a newbie in this subject, so i'm, asking you experts.

How can a switch be a security issue?
This switch is unmanaged and has no IP. It isnt listed in my router (to block any internet access)

Can it send data without knowledge and how can a newbie like me check it?

Thanks

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Theoretically, there could be hardware/software running on the device that learns the source/destination IP addresses of frames passing through it and then assigns itself a suitable static IP so you wouldn't see it in your router's DHCP table and then phones home that way.....

Theoretically. You could try to just plug a single computer into it and run wireshark and see if you see anything. Theoretically its possible for it to not broadcast or send its own traffic until a gateway IP is identified and learned but this would be highly theoretical stuff.

I think all in all the effort to create a compromised stealth switch like this would GREATLY outweigh the effort required to create a working switch with a trusted brand name in a crowded market segment. But hey anything's possible when you wear tinfoil on your head.