FCC's blanket ban on foreign-made routers criticized as overly broad and misdirected
By
Bill Budington
Summary
The FCC updated its Covered List on March 23 to ban all new foreign-made routers from U.S. sale unless granted exceptions by the DoD or DHS, citing security gaps and cyberattacks by Chinese threat actors. The article argues this ban is overly broad and misdirected — it targets consumer products rather than addressing the real problem of vulnerable legacy routers already in use, and could harm consumers, small businesses, and global trade without meaningfully improving cybersecurity.
Source
bskyFCC's blanket ban on foreign-made routers criticized as overly broad and misdirectedeff.orgKey quotes
· 3 pulledThe Commission cited 'security gaps in foreign-made routers' leading to widespread cyberattacks as justification for the ban, mentioning the high-profile attacks by Chinese advanced persistent threat actors Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon.
Although the stated goal is to protect national security, the ban is overly broad and misdirected — it targets consumer products rather than addressing the real problem of vulnerable legacy routers already in use.
The ban could harm consumers, small businesses, and global trade without meaningfully improving cybersecurity.
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