Find default passwords for certain network devices

May 23, '07 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: gubluntu

This tip will work on almost any *nix OS with curl installed. Create a text file called dfltpwd on your Desktop. Copy and paste the following into the text file:

#!/bin/bash
curl -s http://www.phenoelit.de/dpl/dpl.html | 
grep -i $1 | sed "s/<[^>]*>/ /g"
Save the file, then switch to Terminal and type these three commands (without the $):
$ cd ~/Desktop
$ sudo mv ~/Desktop/dfltpwd.txt /usr/bin/dfltpwd
sudo chmod +x /usr/bin/dfltpwd
After doing the above, test the script with something like dfltpwd "belkin". The results should be a listing of default passwords for any Belkin devices from the phenoelit.de site.

[robg adds: I don't tend to save things to /usr/bin, for fear that I overwrite something someday if I ever reinstall the OS. Instead, I have a local user bin folder on my path where such files reside.

And before the comments start, this script is not a way to "hack" networked devices. The script merely makes it easier to find the default password for a given networked device. Speaking as someone who has looked up too many of these in manuals (can you say "AirPort Express?"), this is a handy timesaver. There are quite a few sites that provide such lists, and this little shell script merely makes it easier to view the data from one such site. Also, if you happen to have any network devices that still have their default passwords, this is a good time to mention that you really should change them, because they are about as far from secure as I am from a good golfer...]

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