The Australian government just told thousands of people to throw away their routers, despite experts warning it could be a major security risk.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has blocked thousands of routers
Updating alternative firmware such as OpenWRT is an option that the ACCC has ignored
Discarded SamKnows SK-WB8 routers may pose a security risk if not first wiped with a factory reset

The Australian government’s competition regulator, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), has begun blocking around 4,000 routers, deployed across the country in 2020 to collect information on broadband speeds.

Released as part of the Broadband Metering Australia (MBA) program, the routers were white boxes from SamKnows, a Cisco subsidiary, and had a finite lifespan. That date was reached in June 2026, and the SamKnows SK-WB8 routers were disabled remotely on June 30.

As a consequence, Australians are likely to throw away locked routers, resulting in a sharp increase in e-waste. By doing so, they risk digital security breaches if the routers are not wiped first. Worse still, the ACCC’s position is made even more confusing by the fact that these routers can be upgraded, making their destruction fairly pointless.

Data discarded, but routers still work.

Since the June 30 outage, routers have been known to power on, and although they are blocked from Internet access, they can apparently be reused with custom router firmware. The nature of the data collected by the routers for the MBA program was for customer measurement and registration, and this has apparently been removed, according to emails sent to program volunteers.

While exact figures are unknown, as of December 2020 the ACCC had distributed more than 2,600 of the SamKnows SK-WB8 routers, with 4,000 planned to be released over the life of the MBA programme.

Attempts to contact the ACCC and Cisco for more information about why MBA program volunteers are encouraged to dispose of perfectly usable routers have received candid and non-committal responses.

The ACCC gave ArsTechnica a collected history of the device and the MBA program, as well as stating that “volunteers are encouraged to unplug their disabled white box and dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner through free e-waste recycling services.”

Should you get rid of your ACCC router?

If there is no reason to keep your ACCC supplied router and have a replacement ready, it is important to reset the device to factory settings before discarding it. This ensures that administrator passwords, ISP details and custom network settings are removed, preventing them from falling into the wrong hands.

Finding a safe removal option will help ensure that the router is properly dismantled. The ACCC has sent an email to recipients of SamKnows SK-WB8 routers informing them of the correct disposal procedure, with a link to an active list of e-waste services.

However, if you have the time and inclination to upgrade OpenWRT, there is a guide available explaining how to do so on the OpenWRT for SamKnows SK-WB8 page.

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