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Forum Discussion
Armor on R8000 does not run Vulnerability Scans
9 days ago I activated the 30 day Armor trial on my R8000 router (Firmware V1.0.4.46_10.1.63) with the primary aim of leveraging the Vulnerability Scan capability for the many devices I have on my network - 25 according to armor - all of which are Linux, MacOS or iOS based.
But to date no scan appears to have been run - cetainly the Bitdefender dashboard that I can access states "Not scanned yet" for all devices.
The router has been on permanently during the trial, as have many of the devices attached.
According to the 'blurb' available from Netgear (quoted below) such as scan is supposed to run "anytime a new device connects to your network". Is this lack of scanning the reason I see the following in the Nighthawk app for every device: "This %@ is connected via %@" ??
How do I get this key functionality of the Armor offering to work? Does it work?
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"With NETGEAR Armor, anytime a new device connects to your network a Vulnerability Assessment is run to identify the device, as well as any possible misconfiguration or flaws. Additional checks look at open services (SSH, Telnet), default credentials, and weak passwords. Armor’s Vulnerability Assessment doesn’t end at identifying flaws. It also includes Bitdefender research into all issues affecting IoT devices discovered through manual inspection of the firmware, cloud-based components, and web apps, ultimately giving you a 360° view of the device’s security state, and flags specific vulnerabilities."
13 Replies
Hi sph70 . The vulnerability scans will run. The article you quoted means that a vulnerability scan is done the first time you connect a new device to the network; and weekly thereafter. But that weekly schedule is tricky; unless your devices are on line when the scan is scheduled, the scan will be delayed till the following week. Unfortunately, there is no option for user-triggered scan at this time.
Thank you for the response - but if I interpret it correctly: Armor will scan at some point, but we have no way to know or even predict when and no way to trigger?
I think it a reasonable expectation that when Armor is first activated it must consider all attached devices as "new" and so scan? Even if not I also have devices that first connected to the network after Armor activation as well as multiple devices that are always on and connected since armor was activated. This includes multiple Netgear devices (switches & NAS) that are all hardwired to the R8000.
This only gives the impression that this feature simply does not work at all as at least one of my devices should have triggered based on your description
I guess you need to also install bitdefender onto your computer after your activated Armor.
On the Armor/bitdefender dashboard, click the device you connected to the Netgear router, than click the Install button to install bitdefender onto that device, (assume it is a laptop).
After finish install bitdefender onto that laptop, than click scan (on that laptop). After finish scan, only than the bitdefender on that laptop will report to the Armor/bitdefender dashboard than the scan has been done.
Investigating a little further, I am really struggling to see that Armor is doing anything at all beyond giving me a dashboard list of my devices that I already have via the standard R8000 configuration interface.
No threats have been reported - this despite the R8000 itself emailing reports of blocked sites. No Vulnerability scans are reported and now I notice the the Nighthawk app shows me an empty Protection Level History with a "No Data Found" error when I try to view the log after 10 days of operation.
The claimed feature set is very attractive - but does it actually work? Does Armor do anything beyond provide yet another interface?
My experience so far is the R8000 without armor, together with my previous, much cheaper, anti-malware solution provides equally as much functionality - more even; I don't see the point at all of the iOS armor app at all which just replicates services already freely available to all.
Is it worth me investing more time this?
Sorry, me also a new user, (just started using Armor few days ago).
Before purchase Netgear router, I already have Norton on my Macbook.
My Amor dashboard also showing ""No Vulnerability Assessment scan performed yet"
- It’s a total waste of time.
