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The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced the ROUTERS Act on April 8, 2025, and the full House passed it on April 28. The bill would direct the Commerce Department to study national-security risks and cybersecurity vulnerabilities tied to certain consumer routers and modems. It is not a ban, a replacement order or a new security certification program. The Senate received the House-passed bill on April 29; the congressional record lists it as passed by the House, not enacted into law.
What is the ROUTERS Act?
The ROUTERS Act is the short name for the Removing Our Unsecure Technologies to Ensure Reliability and Security Act, introduced as H.R. 866 in the 119th Congress. Rep. Robert Latta, an Ohio Republican, introduced it on January 31, 2025, with Rep. Robin Kelly, an Illinois Democrat, as a cosponsor. The Senate companion is S. 244. Congress.gov’s bill record tracks the House measure and its status.
The bill’s central purpose is to gather information: it would require a federal study of security risks associated with specified consumer networking equipment. That distinction matters. A study may inform later policy, but it does not itself make a product illegal or change what consumers are required to do.
What would the bill require?
If enacted, H.R. 866 would direct the Secretary of Commerce, acting through the Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information, to study national-security risks and cybersecurity vulnerabilities associated with certain consumer devices:
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- Routers;
- modems; and
- devices that combine a modem and router.
The covered devices are those designed, developed, manufactured or supplied by persons or entities owned by, controlled by, or subject to the influence of a “covered country,” as defined by reference to federal law. The Congressional Research Service summary in the Congress.gov record identifies China, Iran, North Korea and Russia in describing the House measure. That statutory definition should not be conflated with countries named in explanatory materials for related legislation.
The report would go to the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee within one year after enactment. The operative text assigns responsibility to the Commerce secretary through the assistant secretary for communications and information, an official who also leads the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Calling it an NTIA study is common shorthand, but the bill’s wording is more specific.
The final House text includes both cybersecurity vulnerabilities and broader national-security risks. Rep. Kelly’s amendment adding an express focus on cybersecurity vulnerabilities was adopted during committee consideration, according to CyberScoop’s account of the markup. The bill text is the controlling source for what the measure would require.
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Why can a router be a national-security concern?
A router sits between devices on a home or business network and the wider internet. It directs traffic and often provides Wi-Fi, firewall functions, remote administration and, in an all-in-one gateway, modem services as well. A weakness or compromise could create opportunities for traffic redirection, credential theft, surveillance, denial of service, persistence inside a network or participation in a botnet.
Those are possible consequences of compromised or poorly secured equipment—not proof that a particular product or manufacturer is compromised. Risk can stem from unpatched firmware, default credentials, exposed management interfaces, insecure vendor cloud services, weak update infrastructure, opaque supply chains or products that stop receiving security fixes. A device’s country of manufacture alone does not establish malicious behavior or government control.
Lawmakers have also pointed to attacks involving network equipment. CyberScoop reported on the use of compromised Cisco and Netgear routers in the Volt Typhoon campaign and on Salt Typhoon’s impact on U.S. telecommunications networks through Cisco devices. Those examples help explain the policy concern; they do not establish that every device from a named manufacturer is compromised or that a manufacturer knowingly enabled espionage. Attribution and evidence about a particular incident should be kept separate from the general risks the proposed study would examine.
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What the bill does not do
H.R. 866, as passed by the House, would require a study and report. Its text does not:
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- ban routers made in a particular country or sold by a particular brand;
- order households or businesses to replace equipment;
- create a public blacklist or a new product-certification regime;
- recall equipment or require vendors to remediate a vulnerability; or
- automatically trigger regulations or another government action once the report is delivered.
Congress could consider restrictions, procurement rules, security standards, funding or other legislation after reviewing a report. None of those outcomes is automatic under this bill. A study’s one-year reporting deadline would begin only if the measure became law, not when the House passed it.
From committee vote to Senate status
The legislative steps are different, and committee approval alone did not settle the bill’s fate:
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- January 31, 2025: Rep. Latta introduced H.R. 866.
- April 8, 2025: The House Energy and Commerce Committee ordered the bill reported, as amended, by voice vote.
- April 24, 2025: The committee formally reported the measure in House Report 119-75.
- April 28, 2025: The full House passed H.R. 866, as amended, by voice vote under suspension of the rules.
- April 29, 2025: The Senate received the House-passed bill.
- June 2, 2025: The related Senate bill, S. 244, was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar under General Orders, Calendar No. 87.
The official action history records those steps. The congressional record cited here lists H.R. 866 as “Passed House,” not enacted. House passage is not the same as passage by both chambers or presidential approval. For a measure to become law, the Senate must pass the same text as the House (or the chambers must resolve differences), followed by the remaining constitutional steps.
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The bill does not prescribe a detailed technical testing method or specify that Commerce must publish a list of products. A useful assessment could nevertheless help lawmakers examine practical questions such as:
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- How many consumer devices are designed, supplied or controlled by entities linked to covered countries?
- What exposure comes from firmware updates, cloud management, telemetry, mobile apps and remote administration?
- How quickly are vulnerabilities patched, and how long do products receive support?
- What can consumers or internet providers do when a gateway reaches end of support?
- How can policymakers distinguish ordinary supply-chain exposure from evidence of state influence or deliberate compromise?
- What would security requirements or procurement restrictions cost, particularly for rural broadband users, low-income households and small businesses?
These questions point to a real policy trade-off. A study might identify risks and gaps before Congress chooses a response. But a report alone does not patch devices, and broad restrictions could raise costs, reduce choice or complicate replacement of ISP-provided equipment. Ownership, components, firmware, cloud services and distribution can cross multiple jurisdictions, making risk assessment more complicated than checking where a device was assembled.
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What consumers and IT teams can do now
The ROUTERS Act does not require immediate consumer action. Anyone evaluating existing equipment can still take routine security steps:
- Enable automatic firmware updates if the manufacturer or ISP offers them.
- Check whether the router or gateway remains supported; consider replacing it if security updates have ended.
- Use a unique administrator password and disable internet-facing administration unless it is needed.
- Review remote-management, DNS and vendor-account settings.
- Ask an internet provider who controls updates for its gateway and how long the equipment is supported.
- Use guest-network or device-separation features where practical, especially for smart-home devices.
These are general defensive practices, not requirements created by H.R. 866. Replacing a router also cannot eliminate risks from an unsupported modem, an ISP-managed gateway, vulnerable endpoints or a compromised online account.
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