Seagate wireless drives have a serious security hole – an undocumented backdoor which allows malicious hackers to access files, just by using the username “root” with the password of “root”.
Quack quack oops…
You can watch the video below, or subscribe to my YouTube channel if you like.
It’s depressing that we spend so much of our time telling regular computer users that they should use hard-to-crack, hard-to-guess, unique passwords for every website that they use online, but manufacturers like Seagate sell products which all have the same dumb password.
Learn more in the security advisory published by CERT.
Wombats? HAR! I'm still chuckling at that one.
But I'm less mirthful about the decline in quality (and common sense, apparently) at Seagate. They once had the best hard drive warranty in the business, with quality and reliability to match it. But using some bizarre pretzel logic in which they assume customers prefer crap, they seem to have chosen the chintzy path. As a result, I haven't bought a Seagate drive in years.
Now comes this revelation about this idiotic back door. What are they using for sense? I hope this video goes viral, and someone at Seagate realizes that they'd better restore their lost commitment to quality. Otherwise, they'll never get my business back, and a lot more customers will be jumping ship into the bargain.
Thanks as always for your great reporting Graham!
This lack of concern for basic security by manufacturing of hardware/software is a
World Wide Pandemic!
As to what Pete said above, the problem is there is not enough of an embarassment factor because these stories rarely make it to the big media. And even when they do, it is only a blip, and the general public is worse than clueless!