Comcast storing WiFi passwords in cleartext?

Wed Apr 24 02:35:04 UTC 2019

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019, Peter Beckman wrote:

> 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.

... such that the access of the Wifi Password which is likely stored in
plain text on the router is accessed by Comcast in a secure manner and not
stored in plain text in their internal databases.

But I'm guessing probably it's just cached in plain text in their internal
DBs.

Get your own router if you're worried about your Wifi Password being known
by Comcast. Or change to WPA2 Enterprise, but I'm guessing that isn't
supported on the router...

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