Virgin Media urges password change over hacking risk

[admars]

Virgin Media has told 800,000 customers to change their passwords to protect against being hacked.

An investigation by Which? found that hackers could access the provider's Super Hub 2 router, allowing access to users' smart appliances.

A child's toy and domestic CCTV cameras were among the vulnerable devices.

Virgin Media said the risk was small but advised customers using default network and router passwords to update them immediately.

 

Virgin Media urges password change over hacking risk - BBC News

[admars]

Strange, this was posted a week ago....

[h=1]Virgin Media corrects Super Hub security flaw[/h]Customers no longer at risk, says provider.

 

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/news/2017/06/virgin_media_corrects_super_hub_security_flaw/

[LeMarchand]

In one case a home CCTV system was hacked using an administrator account that was not password protected.

 

"Let's be security conscious and install CCTV! We won't bother to password protect it, though."

 

We regularly support our customers through advice and updates and offer them the chance to upgrade to a Hub 3.0 which contains additional security provisions.

 

I requested a SH3 last time our SH2 went kaput, but was told they couldn't guarantee one. (Then sent another 2).

 

Virgin Media has now deployed a firmware patch that addresses this shortcoming and assured customers they are no longer at risk.

 

Ah! "We don't want to have to actually replace the kit."

[mikkydoos]

Hhmm. I've got a new hub coming on Tuesday.

This shall be my password: e6SWmtLSyLUT7dVf5TCw9QGEEK5rAhcW8SVf2GXwTCw9QGEEK5rAhcW8SVf2GX

 

Damn! Hacked!

[elsiegee40]

Hhmm. I've got a new hub coming on Tuesday.

This shall be my password: e6SWmtLSyLUT7dVf5TCw9QGEEK5rAhcW8SVf2GXwTCw9QGEEK5rAhcW8SVf2GX

 

Damn! Hacked!

 

You need an exclamation mark at the end ... mustn't forget the punctuation

Edited June 23, 2017 by elsiegee40

[difinity]

"Let's be security conscious and install CCTV! We won't bother to password protect it, though."

 

Sadly it was standard practice at a CCTV place I worked at to leave all DVRs with the default usernames and passwords for ease of maintenance.

They were also chucked into the DMZ because port forwarding was a bit tricky for some to set up.

[Katy]

Home Hub 3 isn't that good anyway - first thing you see when you go on its web interface is that the Password field is unmasked clear text.

 

I shamed them and asked them why on Twitter and this is their explanation for having an unmasked password field:

 

"Hello Katy. we appreciate the feedback and we'll be sure to pass this along to help continue to improve the services we provide."

Edited June 23, 2017 by Katy

[mikkydoos]

Home Hub 3 isn't that good anyway - first thing you see when you go on its web interface is that the Password field is unmasked clear text.

 

I shamed them and asked them why on Twitter and this is their explanation for having an unmasked password field:

 

"Hello Katy. we appreciate the feedback and we'll be sure to pass this along to help continue to improve the services we provide."

 

I'm just gonna disable everything on mine and use it as a gateway. I'll keep my trusty TPLink.

[LeightonJames]

The Hub 3 has one of the worst interfaces I have ever seen. I despise it. The Hub 2 interface was much better and the location of things made much more sense.

[caffrey]

Shame they didn't give us a choice of a superhub or just a modem, first thing I do with any of my home virgin equipment is put it into modem mode

[Bedders]

I was so glad when I had BT fibre installed, and it came with the Openreach modem - We're using an Asus RT-AC68U with it and have had no issues.

The password that came with our Home Hub 3 was appalling - 8 characters (3 lower case letters and 6 numbers). I know that EE routers now come with 3 words as their default password with hyphens in between. A big step up....