600,000 Arris Cable Modems Have 'Backdoors In Backdoors,' Researcher Claims (thestack.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A security researcher using Shodan to probe Arris cable modems for vulnerabilities has found that 600,000 of the company's modems not only have a backdoor, but that the backdoor itself has an extra backdoor. Brazilian vulnerability tester Bernardo Rodrigues posted that he found undocumented libraries in three models, initially leading to a backdoor that uses an admin password disclosed back in 2009. Brazilian researcher Bernardo Rodrigues notes that the secondary backdoor has a password derived in part from the final five digits from the modem's serial number. However, the default 'root' password for the affected models remains 'arris.'

Comments

Yo Dawg

[Anonymous Coward]

"I heard you like backdoors, so I put a backdoor in your backdoor" ... yeah, I can see why someone hasn't posted this yet.

Re:Nothing to see here...

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Ehm.. a backdoor doesn't program itself and then ends up in firmware because of a 'programming mistake', or because 'corners were cut'.

Oh, I don't know...one time I tried to program "Hello world" and accidentally coded a medical billing system with an accounts receivable dashboard.