Virgin broadband customers ‘at risk of hacking attack’

 Virgin Media is advising more than 800,000 customers with a specific router to change their password immediately, after an investigation found hackers could gain access and steal their personal details.

Fears are growing that families’ internet histories and personal details including passwords and addresses could have been stolen by hackers as a result of the flaw in the Virgin Super Hub 2 router. Consumer group Which? found Virgin Media’s default passwords were just eight characters long and consisted of lowercase letters from an A-Z alphabet with just two letters removed, making them vulnerable to theft. The discovery was made in a Which? investigation by ethical security researchers Surecloud which found that hackers could access home networks and connected appliances in as little as four days.

Virgin Media said the issue also existed with other routers of the same age, and offered customers the chance to upgrade to a Hub 3.0 with better security.