Stop whatever it is you're doing and visit your router manufacturer's website. Once there, drill down to the firmware section and bookmark that page, and then get in the habit of checking it regularly. The reason? Millions of routers are about to become extinct (sort of).

At this year's Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, one of the items on the agenda is "How to Hack Millions of Routers," an alarming keynote in which Craig Heffner, a researcher with security firm Seismic, plans to release a software tool he says is capable of cracking half of all routers in existence.

This isn't a new technique, but an altered version of "DNS rebinding," something that has been talked about for more than a decade.

"There have been plenty of patches over the years, but this still hasn't really been fixed," Heffner says.

In short, the hack exploits part of the Domain Name System (DNS) so that when an unsuspecting visitor surfs to a compromised site, their browser ends up hijacked, giving the attacker access to their router settings. Browser makers have already patched earlier versions of this attack, but according to Heffner, it's all for naught.

"The way that [those patches] are circumvented is actually fairly well known," Heffner explains. "It just hasn't been put together like this before."

More info here, including a small sample of routers Heffner has demonstrated this attack on.

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Could any component in a router’s BOM (bill of materials) cost less than an LED? Don’t think so. So why the heck did Belkin design its Play Max wireless router to use a single LED to inform you of its operating status?

Granted, the Play Max’s street price is $20 to $30 cheaper than many other concurrent dual-band wireless routers, and there might even be a lot of folks who don’t pay much attention to details like the status of their router’s ports or whether or not both of the router’s radios are operating. We do though, and a single LED that glows green when the router has an Internet connection and amber if something is amiss doesn’t cut it.

Continue reading this review after the jump.

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UK residents can look forward to souped up broadband speeds by the end of the year, assuming Virgin Media makes good on its promise to deliver the required hardware.

According to Jon James, Virgin Media's director of broadband, his company plans to release a modem and router capable of handling speeds of up to 400Mbps by year's end, putting the ISP in position to deliver 100Mbps service in the near-term.

"We want to be ready for the evolution of network speeds in the coming years as we roll out ever-improving services," James said.

Virgin Media already has about 70,000 subscribers on its 50Mbps service, the fastest tier currently offered by the ISP. It wasn't that long ago, however, that Virgin Media promised 100Mbps service before the end of 2010, and the company has already trialled 200Mbps service.

At 100Mbps, Virgin Media says Internet users would be able to download a music album in just 5 seconds, an hour-long show in 21 seconds, and an HD movie in a little under 7.5 minutes.

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When the stars are aligned just right, TRENDnet's new TEW-691GR Wireless N Gigabit Router can hit speeds of up to 450Mbps, at least in theory.

There are three external antennas broadcasting on the 2.4GHz spectrum, each one with three spatial streams to produce a record 450Mbps theoretical wireless throughput, TRENDnet says. You'll also find Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) antennae technology to improve signal strength and boost wireless coverage.

"TRENDnet's ability to launch this ground breaking 450Mbps product ahead of other brands says a lot about our recent growth," stated Pei Huang, President and CEO of TRENDnet. "We are ecstatic to set a new performance threshold in the consumer wireless revolution."

The TEW-691GR will be available soon for $199.

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