Gaining Root Access On Linux-Based Femtocells

viralMeme writes "According to the Register, 'Security researchers have turned their attention to femtocells, and have discovered that gaining root on the tiny mobile base stations isn't as hard as one might hope.' One of the researchers said, 'After hours of sniffing traffic, changing IP address ranges, guessing passwords and investigating hardware pinouts, we had obtained root access on these Linux-based cellular-based devices, which piqued our curiosity [about] the security implications.' Whoever designed these devices should be sent back to computer school. An authentication device that can be bypassed is a contradiction in terms. Or, as some pen-pusher would put it in a report: an unantipicated security excursion.

Comments

Re:Jedi Mind Trick, actually

[davester666]

The very concept of Femtocell's is bass-ackwards. You pay a carrier for wireless access, then pay again for a device to actually provide you with the wireless access, along with monthly fee's for the device and also pay for internet access so the device can connect to the carrier over the internet.

It's like "we couldn't be bothered to actually provide you with coverage at your home/office, so would you mind building out our network for us, and pay us extra for the privilege of doing so".

Re:it still comes down to one thing

[mcrbids]

Too many companies are still shipping products that have no intended user access to the command shell with passwords like "Admin", "12345", and the ever-popular "password". It's not like it costs more to have a longer, more complex password.

You think longer, complex setup doesn't cost the company money? I gather that you haven't considered support costs?

The best solution I've seen so far is to have a strong password printed on a sticker on the outside of the box. That's a pretty good compromise because if the attacker has physical access to the box, he/she could hit the "Reset" button on the device anyway. Thus, putting the password on the bottom of the device on a sticker really isn't any less secure than other solutions, and this can be done fairly cheaply.

But it still costs - each router has to be given its own unique password, and a process has to be set up to match up the passwords given with the stickers, and there are still more support costs from the clueless dolts who have to be told to look on the bottom of the device for the default password.

If you assume any intelligence on the part of the end user, your support costs will quickly challenge that assumption!