U.S. Robotics Broadband Router 8003 admin password visible

[Fernando Sanchez <fer () ceu fi udc es>]

Hello.
        US Robotics Broadband Router 8003 is a small home/SOHO router which
is configured using a HTML interface. This interface, as usual, asks for a
password in order to let you view or change configuration parameters. But
the password is checked first by a javascript function that just compares
two strings:

function submitF(F)
{
        var     loginflag,loginIP;
        var pwd;

        loginflag = 0;
        loginIP = "0.0.0.0";

        pwd = "thisistheadminpassword" ;

        if (loginflag == 1)
        {
                alert("Someone ( " + loginIP + " ) has logged in
as an administrator !");
                F.submit();
        }

        if ( F.PSW.value != pwd )
        {
                alert("Incorrect password!");
                F.submit();
        }
        F.submit();
}

And yes, pwd = "thisistheadminpassword" is actually showing the
administrator password. So anyone who can access the HTML administration
interface will be able to login and view or modify the device configuration.

This is true at least with firmware v1.04 08. The router firmware can be
upgraded but U.S. Robotics has not released any revision for the
8003 model yet.

I have contacted them and they have told me that the problem is not too
serious and that it can be solved by limiting the access to the router
interface to trusted people only. No mention to a firmware upgrade or
any other temporal workaround was made.

Kind regards,

Fernando Sanchez