Yep. Doesn't everyone know nmap?

I suspect that there is not a single person in our village would know what doing a port scan on their router was and their knowledge of nmap would perhaps be slightly less than their knowledge of the Third Law of Thermodynamics.

While the depth of knowledge on this forum (and the number of people who are willing to give up their time to share that knowledge) is something we should all be grateful for, no-one has yet given any answer (hopefully in Janet and John language so that the less technically adept can understand the risks they are facing) to the questions I posed a week ago. What are the risks that people like me face and what is the likelihood of something untoward happening to an ordinary domestic user from using a bog-standard vintage ISP-supplied modem/router?

The risks are many and varied but for consumer ignoring things they do on their PC

1. Risk - router is listening for a connection from Internet that exposes the admin interface, potentially allowing an anonymous to upload hacked firmware to do anything on to the router

2. Access via Wi-FI by using an easily guessed or predictable key (some default wireless keys can be quickly guessed) and then once on the LAN the router can be compromised and/or probes made to computers.

In reply to a post by GonePostal:

What are the risks that people like me face and what is the likelihood of something untoward happening to an ordinary domestic user from using a bog-standard vintage ISP-supplied modem/router?

Pretty low actually.
1 - As Andrew also says, change the WiFi password and network name.
2 - Change the admin password to the router (so its not the ISP name etc).

The benefits of using the ISP supplied router include:
1 - ISP updates it centrally, often overnight (BT, Sky, and others do this)
2 - If there is an issue found, the ISP is in a position to manage the risk, they can�t do this with third party equipment

The downside is the ISP supplied routers are often very simplistic, and in some cases even have very poor WiFi range compared to alternatives.

MrS and jchamier

Thanks both for taking the time to explain things for me (and I suspect many others).

" What are the risks that people like me face and what is the likelihood of something untoward happening to an ordinary domestic user from using a bog-standard vintage ISP-supplied modem/router?"

Don't stick your finger in to the open case of the modem/router and you should be ok.