“Recently, malicious state and non-state sponsored cyber attackers have increasingly leveraged the vulnerabilities in small and home office routers produced abroad to carry out direct attacks against American civilians in their homes. From disrupting network connectivity to enabling local networking espionage and intellectual property theft, foreign-produced routers present unacceptable risks to Americans. Additionally, routers produced abroad were directly implicated in the Volt, Flax, and Salt Typhoon cyberattacks which targeted critical American communications, energy, transportation, and water infrastructure. Routers in the United States must have trusted supply chains so we are not providing foreign actors with a built-in backdoor to American homes, businesses, critical infrastructure, and emergency services," the FCC said in its filing released on Monday.

Embroiled Chinese manufacturer and wired and wireless Gartner Magic Quadrant leader Huawei was banned in the U.S. in 2019 when the Department of Commerce added the company to its Entity List, alongside Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer ZTE Corp.

Wireless networking leader Cisco Systems, which shifted manufacturing beyond Asia to India, Mexico and Brazil after the COVID‑19 pandemic, is less exposed to the latest FCC decision, which largely targets consumer and small-business products rather than enterprise gear.

The FCC said the updated restrictions apply to new device models and that users can continue to use previously purchased routers. Router models and vendors that were previously allowed by the government are still being sold by retailers until stock runs out.