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Network discovery? Unknown devices found on network

Tags:
  • Phones
  • Security
  • Various
  • Wireless Network
  • Devices
Last response: in Wireless Networking
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October 4, 2014 4:44:36 PM

I keep noticing various phones / generic devices visible on my network, who haven't been assigned IP addresses.

Here is a pic to illustrate -
http://oi60.tinypic.com/1035v8o.jpg

I don't know whose device QMobile is, but all of the other devices are accounted for, and QMobile at least hasn't been assigned an IP address, but it's still slightly disconcerting. Is this a security risk or an artefact of network discovery?

many thanks

More about : network discovery unknown devices found network

October 4, 2014 5:06:16 PM

It's safe to say that if it's on the network, it has an IP address, whether you are able to find it or not.
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October 4, 2014 5:22:53 PM

If it was on the network, at one point in time it had an IP address.

Some devices show up as some weird generic thing on your Windows Device list, it could be completely nothing, and is some device you hooked up some time ago.

Just to be safe I would change your wifi password and make sure you are set on WPA2
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October 4, 2014 5:53:00 PM

I was worried you might say that. They definitely aren't old devices that should have connected, if that's what happened. The question is if they had access, and knew it.

I have switched from WPA/WPA2-PSK mixed to WPA2 only and changed the key, we'll see if that does the trick. I have a feeling there'll still be devices floating around, will report back.
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October 5, 2014 4:50:54 AM

New network key, WPA2 only encryption... still finding random devices. Now a HUAWEI P7-L10.

I'm not in a busy enough location for these all to be people hacking into the network, is there any chance Windows just displaying anything that is broadcasting/searching for a broadcasting access point?

edit: Also the devices often disappear when I hit refresh
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Best solution

a b 8 Security
October 5, 2014 11:11:25 AM

Make sure WPS mode is disabled. You can crack the WPS pin code and it is impossible to change it and this code will give the user the WPA2 key.

It still takes like 10 hours to initially crack the WPS pin so it is not something that someone would just randomly do, it take quite a effort to break in.

Still it is always good policy to disable this feature. If we could get rid of all the stupid people maybe the router manufactures would stop shipping routers with this enabled out of the box.
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13 minutes ago

Ahh thanks for that, sorry for late reply, didn't get an email notification. Sure enough I disabled WPS yesterday and have been periodically checking the network from a couple of machines - no unwanted devices!
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