CERT.org has reported Seagate wireless hard drives include “undocumented Telnet services” accessible with a hard-coded password.
This allows “unrestricted file download capability to anonymous attackers with wireless access to the device.” And another flaw makes it possible to upload anything into the devices' default file-sharing directory.
The wireless hard drives pack a hard disk and Wi-Fi controller into a small package. Seagate markets the products as a great way for several portable hand-held devices to access content, most often in a home environment. The devices are, however, effectively a small network-attached storage device: there's every chance more than a few are doing duty as a de facto file server in very small businesses.
The three flaws present in the device mean that anyone on your network – or who can reach it from the outside – armed with the default password of "root" and enough savvy to try the username “root” can download the entire contents of the Seagate devices, then upload malware into them.
Which could mean fun times if bad guys decide to replace your putty.exe, or Office documents, with something containing malware. Seagate's made new firmware available, version 3.4.1.105 to be precise and says that code "addresses all security concerns with these vulnerabilities."
The company also requests owners of its kit to “please check the Download Finder regularly to determine if new firmware is available for your drive.” Lovely sentiments, but of course most consumers have shown they've no idea about this stuff by failing to install much-needed new broadband router firmware despite colossal security holes. It should be mentioned that security vulnerabilities in UPnP continue to crop up and continue to put millions of home networking devices at risk for compromise.
