Six Million Sky Broadband Users at Risk of Being Hacked with Admin Password | Here's the List of Potentially Risky Units

Urian B., Tech Times 20 November 2021, 10:11 am

Millions of Sky broadband users with WiFi networks could be compromised by hackers due to a software bug. The problem took Sky about 18 months to fix for its six million users. Researchers revealed that users that have their password remaining on default are at risk of being hacked.

Sky's Response to the Vulnerability

According to the story by Express.co.uk, Sky responded to why it took more than a year for them to fix the glitch, saying an update to fix this problem takes time. A company spokesperson said that they "take their customers' safety and security" seriously.

After the risk became known, they started to look for a remedy for the problem and confirmed that a fix had already been rolled out to all Sky-manufactured products. A list of products has also been revealed, with the publication saying that if users' didn't change their admin password for the WiFi hub, they would be at risk of a hack.

Affected Sky WiFi Products

Booster 3 (EE120)
Sky Hub 3 (ER110)
Sky Hub 4 (SR203)
Booster 4 (SE210)
Sky Hub 3.5 (ER115)
Sky Hub (SR101)

The Sky Hub 4 (SR203) and the Booster 4 (SE210) arrived at buyers with a randomly-generated password which is relatively harder for hackers to take advantage of. The publication said that hackers could corrupt consumers' WiFi networks and find out what they are doing online.

This includes monitoring users' internet traffic, including a complete list of websites that users have visited, and sometimes stealing passwords and other personal info. A Digital Privacy Expert at ProPrivacy Dawson stated the publication.

Sky 'Undoubtedly' Put Their Consumers at Risk

The security expert said that Sky has "undoubtedly" put its consumers at risk due to taking too long to fix the problem. During this time, it was said that anyone that has the requisite knowledge could take advantage of this exploit to access Sky consumers' internal network remotely.

Consumers who purchased the WiFi router issued by Sky but manufactured by another company can ask for a replacement from Sky for free. The Sky WiFi glitch affects six million Sky consumers by enabling hackers to infiltrate their WiFi network through simple phishing.

Pan Test Partners on the Issue

The publication warns the public of clicking links coming from sketchy emails, which could direct users to a malicious site that installs malware. The software could be designed to reconfigure the router due to the bug.

According to the article by Yahoo finance, Pen Test Partners' researcher Raf Fini was responsible for finding the software code flaw. Ken Munro, from Pen Test Partners, told BBC News that while the pandemic put internet service providers under pressure, they are taking over a year to fix an "easily exploited security flaw" which is considered "unacceptable."

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Written by Urian B.