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Lazy Passwords Leave 21K Routers, Cams, Phones Open to Attack

by Evan Shamoon on October 28, 2009 at 04:58 PM


In the "yet another thing to be paranoid about" category comes a report that nearly 21,000 routers, webcams and VoIP products are wide open to remote attack, simply because their owners have committed the ultimate sin: failing to change the manufacturer's default password for the devices.

The study was performed by Ang Cui, a grad student at Columbia University's Intrusion Detection Systems Laboratory, which has sponsored the likes of DARPA and the Department of Homeland Security. Researchers have now scanned over 130 million IP addresses, and discovered nearly 300,000 devices to be remotely accessible. And the 21,000 devices with default passwords are, of course, the most vulnerable -- "runts of the litter", if you will.

Linksys routers took the lead in head-slappingly lazy users in the United States, laying claim to 45-percent of the 2,729 U.S. routers that were publicly accessible via a default password.

The consequences for not changing these passwords can be extreme. Through unprotected routers, hackers could easily steal credit card information, or launch system-crippling attacks. Meanwhile, hacking into a VoIP system would allow easily recorded online conversations.

Bottom line: change your router password! Now! [From: Wired]

Tags: hack, hacker, password, router, security, top, wifi, wireless

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