One Simple Trick to Knock Out the Wi-Fi Network

Black Duck Researchers Discover Flaw in Widely Used Broadcom Chipset Greg Sirico • January 13, 2026

A flaw in Broadcom chipsets commonly used in wireless routers allows attackers to repeatedly knock offline the 5 gigahertz band, no matter how strong the security settings, say researchers.

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Researchers at Black Duck say a fuzzing experiment with an ASUS router discovered that transmitting a single, malformed frame could cause complete loss of connectivity for all clients on the 5 GHz network. Manually resetting the router would restore the frequency band, but wouldn't prevent a hacker from immediately launching a new attack.

Coordination with the router manufacturer located a flaw in the Broadcom chipset. The semiconductor manufacturer estimated in 2023 that 99% of all internet traffic passes through at least one Broadcom chip.

Black Duck isn't disclosing how exactly it ...