nanog mailing list archives

Re: Comcast storing WiFi passwords in cleartext?


From: Peter Beckman <beckman () angryox com>
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 2019 22:13:55 -0400

On Wed, 24 Apr 2019, Luke Guillory wrote:

OP said they logged into their account and went to the security portion
of the portal. So one can assume they're the ISP or I don’t see the point
in asking how Comcast would know the info.

It is entirely possible that an account separate and hidden from the
customer account would be able to access the administrative controls of the
router. It is also plausible that the access does not use a
username/password to authenticate but another, hopefully secure method.

One could make this access secure by:

    1. Ensuring any connection originated from Company-controlled IP space
    2. Username/Password are not provided to the CS agent but is merely a
        button they press, after properly authenticating themselves as well
        as authenticating the customer, that would pass a one-time use
        token to access the device
    3. Every token use was logged and regularly audited
    4. Keys were regularly and in an automated fashion rotated, maybe even
       daily

If such precautions are taken, it is their router and it is their service,
seems reasonable that Comcast should be able to log into their router and
change configs.

Beckman
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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman () angryox com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
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