Sky Broadband puts the fault into default Wi-Fi security

Yeah, because that worked so well for the gmail switchover...

Sending out a notice that your WiFi key is easily compromised to your userbase that's *already proved* it's unable/unwilling to perform technical tasks (see switch to GMail's email servers for proof) seems something of a waste of time.

What are the chances of someone war-driving past your house AND you having Sky broadband AND it having a weak key AND they stop long if enough to figure out the MAc -> key algo AND can be bothered to download something before driving up the road for a pint and a pasty?

Mines the one with the aerial sewn into the sleeve and strange chalk marks on the back...

Why bother?

I agree with Paolo and in my house I can pick-up about 4 different wireless networks with no security so as mine is the only one with a password I'd presume any local hackers or network thieves would just jump on someone elses!

erm......

Thats a bit strange, my sisters router was completely open to teh world, default sky admin password, SSID being transmitted as, strangely enough "SKY" and no wireless security enabled at all.

More than security problems

On top of this, the re-badged router/modem which comes with Sky broadband is a hunk of junk and constantly drops connections if you try to use any kind of P2P software (this includes the BBC iPlayer, and even the World of Warcraft update installer).

Although it breaks Sky's Ts&Cs, I'd highly recommend doing a Google hunt to find out how to program a good modem/router to work with your Sky broadband account. There are a few very easy to follow walkthrough's online. I actually found after doing this that my top end download speed also increased when I replaced the shoddy hardware.

@ Ramzi Yakob

Possibly only the original router?

I've got the new Sagem router and I get no issues with P2P or iPlayer.

Wireless reception/strength is also much better than my old Netgear router (as used with Nildram before I moved to Sky).

NoOnions

Have you tried to crack WEP

I is important that you cannot algorithmetrically guess a WEP password, because even 64 bit WEP is enough to deter casual bandwidth-stealers.

I made an attempt to crack a 64 bit WEP key on one of my wireless routers recently, just to see how long it would take.

I used airmon, airodump and aircrack, and read that I would need something over 200,000 packets before aircrack would be guaranteed to recover the key. I found that it was not the power of the machine running the crack, but the amount of traffic on the network which determined the amount of time to crack the key.

After running the whole weekend, I had nowhere near enough packets with just surfing running on the network (I admit it was a quiet, but not idle network), so I suspect that most war-drivers will not bother to hang around to attempt to crack your 64 bit WEP unless you are a big-time P2P user, or throw large media files around your wireless network.

Of course, the 15 year old h4x0r or script-kiddie in the next road, trying to get porn without their parents knowing might be a different matter.

@Peter Gathercole

I'm not going to post the details, but what you did is known as passive monitoring. It is trivially easy for an external computer to massively increase the network traffic (and not just specific network traffic, but one particular type where the content of the packets is largely known) when trying to get a WEP key.

I suggest looking into this simply because it is an interesting topic, but I assure you that claims WEP can be cracked in minutes are not lies.

call me paranoid but...

My wireless router sits behind a dedicated BSD security box, it runs WPA2, has no default anything, and I change the passwords randomly (but often).

The BSD box will only accept connections from known Mac / IP combinations and anyway, logs all traffic and connections/attempts. I get a graph in my inbox every morning with all usage.

And then, if you do get past all that, there's not a single 'doze box on the network, only secured Macs.

Granted, this is not typical. But it's at least moderately safe.

I know 8 people on sky broadband

and all the routers are sent out with the default settings for the router being admin and sky as the password. No word of a lie.

Plus the firmware on those netgears are complete shit and they will not supply you with account details to use your own third party hardware. If you look in the T&C's it actually states in doing so you void your contract.

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that they bloody use MAC cloning like cable routers a la Virgin, which has got to be the eeeeeeeeasist of things to replicate.

I sincerely hope their satelittes have better security than their tera firma gear.

Crass ignorance and willful neglect of a duty of care

What is perhaps more worrying than either the ignorant arrogance of the Sky spokesperson or incompetence of the team that dreamed up the router's release configuration, is the whole issue about the security (sic) of WEP per se.

With claims that a 64bit can be broken in minutes, I don't see why any router manufacturer/ISP wouldn't want to see, as standard, a "WPA-PSK [TKIP] + WPA2-PSK [AES]" key set up, say, with an automatic 64bit random key generator button right there on the interface.

Of course that wouldn't make everyone use the security afforded, but it might make the few that do a little safer and certainly Sky wouldn't be open to the charge of crass ignorance and willful neglect of a duty of care, as they are now.

RTB.

Consumers have a responsibility too

I's all very well saying that the company who sells something should do this or that but the consumer has a responsibility to educate themselves as well. Buying without knowing what you are really buying and it's caveat emptor. Anyone how has broadband has the means to educate themselves i.e. the internet. Most people are too lazy to read beyond the quick set up guide. If that's the case then it's their own fault. Manuals are put in boxes not to chew up rainforest but to allow people to better understand their equipment. I'm sick to the back teeth of people asking me dumb a*ssed questions about how to do this that and the other on their new piece of crap that they bougtht because it was shiny. All the questions are answered in that manual the threw away.

Far too much spoon feeding of people is done these days. It wouldn't surprise me if more than half the population could even wire up a plug.

@Cracking WEP

Firstly, it is important to note that aircrack and aircrack-ng are two different things. You want the "-ng"! Secondly, you also want -z option available in more recent versions of aircrack-ng, which has the "break 128bit WEP with just 40,000 IVs option". That feature is not available in backtrack2, yet, though. And even if it was, that would not help with your unfortunate choice of chipset, anyway, because backtrack is simply a Linux system that boots off a CD and not a magical solution to having the wrong hardware.

In the end, I found it easier to setup a Debian system with exactly the stuff I need than dealing with backtrack2. If your chipset *is* functioning nicely for injection, the patched drivers are out there available for download already.

I find it necessary to point out that I do WEP cracking for testing purposes only and always only attempt breakins into networks I own or administrate...!

Just Jailbreak it!

I got rid of the sky software altogether and the speed increases are notable!

Using netgear's update service won't get you sky software free though - use the recovery program on netgears website and manually download the firmware file, then run recovery program and update away - one debranded Netgear DG834GT!

Apart from the hardware, my broadband connection is both reliable and doesn't suffer connection drops anywhere near the BT Home hub!!! very happy Sky customer!

Sky router firmware flaky, no more

It is well known at least in the Sky user community that the "phase 1" Netgear routers have firmware that is flaky at best. It is also known that Sky are preparing a firmware upgrade to resolve all of the known issues attributable to that firmware. The firmware is written by Netgear and they nobbed it up in respect of the Sky customisations. Perhaps a lesson to the wise is not to customise firmwares beyond the absolute minimum required.

Anyroadup, the bugginess does not affect Phase 2 Netgear or Sagem Sky routers.

On topic: Isn't it about time that those who use IT got the hang of the basics like security? Or are these the same people who still hang their front door key on the inside of the letterbox on a piece of string?

Router's firmware is totally crap

Even with the 'new' version 2, you get frequent drop offs, meaning you have to reboot the router at least twice a day.

Injecting the line:

http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=ping_test&c4_IPAddr=%26/bin/grep+ppoa_+/tmp/nvram+%3E+/www/netgear.cfg

into a web browser and then saving the cfg file, opening with any text editor will reveal your username and password, making configuring any other router so much simpler.

Then there are no drop offs, constant reboot etc..I know because I've alrady done it.

AC because I don't want Sky to know I've broken my T&Cs.

@Ramzi Yakob

Sugar's special.

Loss leaders or what? The original SKY malware was the stuff made for them by a certain "entrepreneur" famous for his pig ignorance.

Nothing seems to have changed.

Sky netgear ADSL Router

I can confirm I'm someone else who had nothing but issues with the netgear ADSL Wireless Router provided with sky. It would drop connections for no clear reason (i even checked for interference by borrowing a airdefence sensor from work etc.)

Once I replaced that with a seperately bought ADSL Router the sky adsl has been rock solid for me.

As for voiding terms and conditions, I'm sure sky are well aware of how many non-netgear adsl routers are connecting. I doubt many of us bother modifing MAC addresses on our ADSL routers.