Depends how often the provider pushes out updates (and the purpose/necessity of them). And it’s only that “rare unplanned outage” when a malicious update brick

Depends how often the provider pushes out updates (and the purpose/necessity of them). And it’s only that “rare unplanned outage” when a malicious update bricks your device. Much worse is a malicious update that doesn’t result in an outage. Probably still rare but that impact though. Edit: would also add that there’s probably a big firmware chip that changes infrequently, and frequently changing config stored on a separate and smaller chip (like a 24c or 93 series eeprom that holds a few kilobytes). That way you don’t risk bricking your modem by unplugging it at the wrong time.