Huge Survey of Firmware Finds No Security Gains in 15 Years

CITL surveyed over 6,000 firmware images from 18 vendors spanning 2003–2018 and found pervasive lack of basic security hardening (ASLR, stack guards, non-executable stacks) with no clear improvement over time; the report warns this systemic failure in firmware build practices leaves routers, cameras and other embedded devices highly susceptible to large-scale compromise (Mirai-style botnets) and urges vendors to adopt simple build flags and post-build testing.