Software maker removes "backdoor" giving root access to radio devices

guest · Jul 15, 2021

Software maker removes "backdoor" giving root access to radio devices
July 15, 2021
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...backdoor-giving-root-access-to-radio-devices/

The author of a popular software-defined radio (SDR) project has removed a "backdoor" from radio devices that granted root-level access.

The backdoor had been, according to the author, present in all versions of KiwiSDR devices for the purposes of remote administration and debugging.
Last night, the author pushed out a "bug fix" on the project's GitHub aimed at removing this backdoor silently, which sparked some backlash.
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Yesterday, Mark Jessop, an RF engineer, and radio operator came across an interesting forum post in which the author of the KiwiSDR project admitted to having remote access to all radio receiver devices running the software.

Interesting post on the KiwiSDR forums. Seems to imply the KiwiSDR author has remote access to all KiwiSDRs? Post has since been modified to remove the last paragraph and the thread locked :-/ https://t.co/cAi5dS7J49 pic.twitter.com/elqSsaUJ65
— Mark Jessop (@vk5qi) July 14, 2021
Another user, M. dug out a 2017 forum thread where KiwiSDR's developer admitted that a backdoor indeed provided them with remote access to all KiwiSDR devices.
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Furthermore, as of today, over 600 KiwiSDR devices are online with the backdoor still present in them, as highlighted by Hacker Fantastic.

Some Redditors also expressed that backdoors were never okay, regardless of whether HTTPS was in use:

"No way. Back doors are never okay. Password was sent in the clear, as HTTPS isn't supported. Eventually someone would have exploited this. Hell, someone might have already exploited this and we just don't know about it," said one of the users in a thread.
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