QNAP Extends Security Updates To EOL Devices To Head Off More Ransoware Attacks… Or To Keep Customers From Dumping Them
QNAP is a company that is under some degree of pressure thanks to a string of ransomware attacks that led to perhaps thousands of Internet facing NAS devices getting pwned by threat actors. And it didn’t help that they force fed updates to users of their NAS devices that caused various degrees of havoc. Though they later told users to update their firmware to avoid getting pwned. Though there were suggestions that you might be pwned regardless.
That brings us to the present day and QNAP is announcing that they are extending security updates to products that are end of life:
The extended end date of Technical Support and Security Updates applies as below:
| CPU Architecture | Last Supported NAS OS Version for the Model | Extended Date |
| x86 64-bit models or ARM models that support one of the NAS OS versions on the right. | QTS 4.2.6 QTS 4.3.3 QTS 4.3.6 QTS 4.4.1 | Effectively till October 2022 |
The support for EOL models will be limited to high or critical security updates until the end of Technical Support and Security Updates date. For users to protect data from security threats growing along with the technology, QNAP recommends that users do not connect the EOL device to the internet while following the advice in “What is the best practice for enhancing NAS security?”.
Please visit www.qnap.com/go/product/status to see the end date on the “Technical Support and Security Updates” column for each EOL model.
The company admits that this is a “special effort to help users protect their devices from today’s security threats”. Which is likely true. But it also is likely an attempt to keep people like yours truly from dumping their QNAP NAS devices and moving to competing brands such as Synology as I don’t hear about such widespread pwnage with those devices, or other devices that QNAP competes against. Perhaps QNAP would be better served by bringing in some help to get to the bottom of why their NAS devices keep getting pwned so often? And then sharing that with anyone who will listen? Just a thought.
February 22, 2022 at 10:35 am
[…] been writing about QNAP devices being hit by various ransomware strains. Most recently, I said this when news filtered out that QNAP was extending support to end of life devices to fight these sorts […]