Keep in mind that while the big hacks are making the news, the small hacks of individual PCs are happening constantly and not making the news. Insecure WiFi is still a significant vector for those sorts of attacks.

I guess I'm discovering this really late, but apparently many modems have default passwords that are all the same for a given model, and that includes admin passwords! What's more, you can get a list of the modem and their passwords on the internet!! And most people don't bother changing the password!!! I'm running out of exclamation marks!!!!

http://securityspread.com/2013/07/01/modem-secure/

Whose bright idea is this? I can understand if a modem comes with default passwords specific to that individual modem, but for all modems of the same model to have the same passwords...

So, boys and girls, change your modem passwords (including the admin password) if you haven't ever done so.

It's for manufacturing simplicity since it would be difficult to match a given manual to a given modem or it would cost more and add a step to put a correlated sticker on the box.

Also gives Tech Support a fighting chance to fix things.

Caveat emptor.

Of course they do. That way, when someone changes their password (as you should always do), then promptly forgets it, they can reset the modem to factory defaults (typically a small pushbutton on the device), look up the default password in the user manual or on the internet, then get back in.


I don't know if that's true. But if it is, yeah, people sometimes do dumb things, or fail to do smart things.


You would have a LOT of modems in landfills if people had to save and keep track of individualized default passwords. Folks would be locking themselves out right and left.

Typically. modems and routers have default passwords, but also by default, remote access is usually disabled. Meaning that clueless people who don't know to change their passwords would also probably be clueless about having to manually activate remote access. So with no remote access, their modems would still be "relatively safe", because someone would have to connect to the modem from inside the home to be able to use the default password. Still, change your passwords and don't depend on "remote access is disabled" to protect you, because sometimes it won't.

The cable modem/router combinations I've seen around here that are provided by the cable companies tend to have unique passwords by default, that are attached to the back side of the modem/router with a sticker. However, your cable ISP can still get into the modem from their end via a master password or some other backdoor built into the modem, regardless of what you set the password to.

Routers that you buy on your own however, always have default passwords in my experience. I've never run into one that did not.


Yes. And change the default combination to your pushbutton locks too. That combination you probably have now, "push two and four together, then push three", isn't very safe either...

Some manufacturers (not of any consumer gear that I know of) require a password change during the initial configuration.

You should take it as a given that if a threat actor gains physical access to your workstation, server, router, switch, or whatever, it's owned.