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back to article Cash register maker used same password – 166816 – non-stop since 1990

Fraud fighters David Byrne and Charles Henderson say one of the world's largest Point of Sale (PoS) systems vendors has been slapping the same default passwords – 166816 – on its kit since 1990. Worse still: about 90 per cent of customers are still using the password. The enraged pair badged the PoS vendor by its other acronym …

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  1. Pedigree-Pete

    Owner responsibility.

    All the devices I deal with have a default manufacturers admin password, well known to everyone in the industry & easily garnered from the freely available PDF admin guides on the manufacturers web sites.

    Shirley the purchaser is responsible for securing his devices with his own user & admin passwords?

    If lost or forgotten a factory reset will usually fix that.

    Pete

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  2. Herby

    Manufacturers Password

    In a project I worked on we cooked in a "master" password that allowed entry into the system. We went to great lengths to deny that it existed to "higher ups". I was told that eventually it was released in dire circumstances (it would have necessitated a site visit). The funny thing was that it was a relatively simple password, just the companies initials as control characters. I have no idea if any of these systems exist almost 30 years later. I was laid off before the company was sold off.

    So, these things happen all the time. The saying goes: "Can you keep a secret?" to which the proper answer is "yes", but the next phrase is "So can I".

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  3. Cook942
    Black Helicopters

    Damn, guess they finally worked out what i was doing

    In another, forensics were left stumped by a carder's keylogger which had logged repeat keys (such as aaaaa ggggg bbbbb) entered on the PoS server. It was later revealed staff had used the machine to play Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, and download porn.

    0 0 Reply

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