nanog mailing list archives

Re: Yondoo provided router, has "password" as admin pw, won't let us change it


From: Todd Stiers <todd.stiers () gmail com>
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 2023 18:48:51 -0800

[OP here]

Just some minor follow up:

 - The tech was able to swap out their RG with the modem-only one that I
had sent (after making a couple phone calls). It didn't seem like they
could provision a user-supplied modem remotely for some reason, but it also
sounded like maybe this wasn't something they normally do, if ever.

 - The outgoing RG was an Evolution Digital EVO3000GW. The screenshots that
dropped were meant to show me attempting an admin password change, and it
not letting me.

 - AFAIK, no WAN ports were open, but UPnP was on by default. I neglected
to do a port scan on the WAN port before the equipment swap, but that
probably would've been prudent.

 - Sorry for not being clear about this before, but I'm fairly remote (~5
hour drive), so my mom was acting as remote [somewhat arthritic] hands in
all this.

 - Since I'm remote, I had previously sent a raspberry pi that is running
both pi-hole (to mitigate the possibility of her or her partner clicking on
a malicious ad or pop-up that may compel them to inadvertently connect with
a call center scammer again) and ZeroTier. I use ZT to log in to this
device, which double NAT breaks, which is why I brought that up. Totally
understandable that most average customers don't use this, and a double-NAT
situation is probably fine for my mom's demographic. That said, to be sure,
the much bigger issue is that they're provisioning CPE with an unchangeable
"password."

 - I understand that this forum may not be quite the right fit for a post
like this, and am looking for others that may be more appropriate. My hope
is that this eventually gets to someone at Yondoo, or parent Mid-Atlantic
Broadband (AS29914), since something like this probably falls outside of
the wheelhouse of their tier 1 support, which was all we could get a hold
of.

Thanks to everyone who's responded -- I value all of your input.

Cheers,
Todd

On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 5:09 PM Jason R. Rokeach via NANOG <nanog () nanog org>
wrote:

It’s been a while, but attacks that take advantage of this are (or at
least in the past have been) real.


https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/09/website-security-compromised-website-used-to-hack-home-routers.html


<https://blog.sucuri.net/2014/09/website-security-compromised-website-used-to-hack-home-routers.html>
https://www.digitaltrends.com/web/javascript-malware-mobile/

I recall when this stuff first started to come out, leaning on RG vendors
to fix their firmware to make their default passwords unpredictable based
on information readily available on the LAN.
In this case we’re not even talking about taking action this
sophisticated… It seems to me that, having a customer willing and ready to
secure themselves, preventing them from doing so is wildly inappropriate.


On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 7:57 PM, Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke () gmail com> wrote:

I agree, but if we start listing every massive security vulnerability that
can be found on the intra-home LAN in consumer-grade routers and home
electronics equipment, or things that people operate in their homes with
the factory-default passwords, we'd be here all month in a thread with 300
emails.

I'm sure this ISP will realize what a silly thing they did if and when
some sort of worm or trojan tries a set of default logins/passwords on
whatever is the default gateway of the infected PC, and does something like
rewrite the IPs entered for DNS servers to send peoples' web browsing to
advertising for porn/casinos/scams, male anatomy enlargement services or
something.



On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 3:28 PM William Herrin <bill () herrin us> wrote:

On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 2:36 PM Eric Kuhnke <eric.kuhnke () gmail com> wrote:
I would hope that this router's admin "password" interface is only
accessible from the LAN side.
This is bad, yes, but not utterly catastrophic.

It means that any compromised device on the LAN can access the router
with whatever permissions the password grants. While there are
certainly worse security vulnerabilities, I'm reluctant to describe
this one as less than catastrophic. Where there's one grossly ignorant
security vulnerability there are usually hundreds.

Regards,
Bill Herrin


--
For hire. https://bill.herrin.us/resume/



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