Verizon Division Certifies Broadband Home Routers
Hackers are increasingly viewing home routers as a means of gaining access to sensitive personal data. To help combat this threat, ICSA Labs, an independent division of Verizon, is offering a new program under which manufacturers can have their broadband home routers certified.
The program, Managed Broadband Home Router Certification, evaluates a router’s effectiveness in identifying safe versus harmful data, and then in denying access to malicious data. Certified broadband home routers (BHRs), which are generally used to connect computers on a home network to the Internet, can offer consumers a higher level of security assurance.
ICSA Labs awarded the first Managed Broadband Home Router Certification to Actiontec’s M1424WR family of wireless home routers.
As BHRs are considered a type of firewall appliance, the router certification program will launch as part of ICSA Labs’ Network Firewall Program, which was established in 1995 and evaluates the effectiveness and security measures of network firewalls.