WiFi security settings changing by themselves on Sagemcom FAST 5364-3 Router (WiFi Hub)

[MyLastResort]

I am new to TalkTalk in the last 2 months.

I have found that my router WiFi security settings (specifically those relating to MAC filtering) have changed by themselves on at least a couple of occasions. 

This is obviously concerning.

The most recent changes changed the MAC filtering setting from ALLOW ALL to DENY. I can see from the router logs that there were no other logins between me logging out last night and logging in again today. The changes even happened while I was not at home. Luckily, since I currently have no MAC addresses listed this did not affect my WiFi access today.

However, when I first set up my router, as a matter of routine additional security I DID set up a list of the MAC addresses of my own devices. The settings changed by themselves while I was actually logged onto the router admin web pages from ALLOW (allowing ONLY those MAC addresses I had listed) to DENY - which kicked all my devices off the WiFi. Luckily I was logged into the router via a wired connection.

The router logs show 6 messages today saying "WiFi security settings have been successfully saved" all of which occurred while I was away from home. They are in two sets of three - in each set the first two are 2 seconds apart and the second and third messages are 6 seconds apart. The regularity, I hope, is an indication of an automatic process.

I have spent hours on the phone and the web chat with TalkTalk support regarding other issues (poor WiFi connectivity/speeds from the router to my WiFi devices as flagged by the TalkTalk account SpeedTest tool) which they have failed to resolve. They even closed both the REP and CMP number without reference to me.

However I raised these WiFi security settings changing during this process and was point blank told it was impossible. When I told them that that the WiFi optimisation process that runs by default on the Sagemcom router DOES change at least the channel settings it was clear the people I was speaking/chatting to were not even aware of the WiFi optimisation process.

So, I am left with the fact that since the settings change without my intervention, either they are being changed by the router as part of the optimisation process OR I have somehow been hacked by someone who can change settings on the router without leaving traces of a login in the logs. While I am paranoid in general the latter seems unlikely but I would like confirmation from TalkTalk that these settings CAN be changed automatically and I would like the WiFi optimisation process switched off on my router so it does not happen again if that is the cause.

If anyone has experience of this I would be very grateful to hear. I have searched the forums and there are some cases where people have mentioned seeing the messages "WiFi security settings have been successfully saved" in the logs when they were not logged onto the router but in these cases they seemed to have been dismissed the messages as benign and no further investigation was done. I have screen shots of the logs showing these messages and that there were no logins apart from ones I can confirm to be by myself since I logged on last night when all the settings were correct. However I would not wish to share these in the public forum.

I hope someone can shed some light on this matter. 

[MyLastResort]

Thanks for the update. I look forward to the new version.

Would it be possible though to confirm with the developers once and for all whether the WiFi optimisation process can actually change other settings - either by design or by a possible bug where, as an example say, data tables are accidentally overwritten if, for example, a customer creates a large list of MAC addresses for the MAC filtering?

It occurs to me that the behaviour I have seen might not be by design but as a result of a firmware bug and that as most customers probably never even login to the admin pages of their router let alone set up MAC filtering it is likely that real world testing of this feature may be limited and prone to bugs. (I worked for years as a software engineer involved in testing and know that many strange things can happen that are 'impossible' but due to inadequate testing.)

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Morning,

Thanks for the update. The new firmware should start to roll out in the next month.

Thanks

[MyLastResort]

A quick update on this.

It is now nearly 2 weeks since WiFi optimisation was switched off and since then there have been no further cases of MAC filtering settings mysteriously changing by themselves nor of messages in the router logs saying that WiFi Security settings were successfully changed while I was not even at home.

While this is not proof that WiFi optimisation was the cause it does seem like a suspicious coincidence so I will continue to monitor.

In the mean time, is there any news on the new firmware you mentioned? Will it have new features or is it a bug fix release?

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

Yes, this may be hit and miss and will be unrelated to the mac issue.

Karl.

[MyLastResort]

OK I will monitor things to see.

This may not be related but when I run the "Run a speed test" from https://support.talktalk.co.uk/ it currently tells me that I have no WiFi devices connected which is rubbish. This did originally work for me as that is what caused me to contact TalkTalk in the first place before the current settings changing issue came up. I'm guessing the test is currently broken and it is not related?

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi,

OK, see what happens with optimisation off.  We have a new Firmware that is nearly ready and we should be able to deploy this in the coming weeks.

Karl.

[MyLastResort]

Thanks Karl,

I will set my MAC filtering settings back to ALLOW ALL (still with no MAC address list which will mean I will still have access even if the setting reverts by itself to DENY again) and see if they change again. 

I have already factory reset the router a couple of days ago using the paperclip in the pinhole method. I did this as I was wondering if the router simply cannot handle a large list of devices in its MAC filtering list - so I decided to factory reset then set up from scratch without entering any MAC addresses in the filter list. Since the settings changed again last night the reset cured nothing.

Sadly this is my second router and with both the settings for MAC filtering have changed on their own. Note that it is ONLY MAC filtering settings that have changed as far as I can see, although in two cases a specific MAC address was removed from the list when the main MAC filtering settings settings were changed.

I suppose it is possible that there is a firmware bug in handling MAC filtering and since the MAC filtering is possibly not used by most customers there may not have been many reports similar to this. My router firmware is SG4K100136. Other than that I am at a loss.

[Karl-TalkTalk]

Hi

The optimisation process should not affect any mac filtering rules that are set up.

I've turned off Optimisation for your router so you can test this yourself, but if the issue continues, try a pin reset of the router - hold a pin or paperclip in the reset hole at the back for 10 seconds and this will fully reset the router. 

If still failing once the router is set back up then we can replace the router to see if it is at fault.

Regards,

Karl.