Didn't find what you were looking for?


We have advanced search options to make it easier to locate posts, questions and answers on this community.
More information can be found at Advanced Search Options
If you are looking for something specific, please check if someone else has already asked or answered the same question.
You are currently viewing the Spectrum Community Archives
This content may be outdated or inaccurate
All posts are closed and commenting has been disabled
If you have a question or comment, please start a new post (registration is required)

Leave the Archive

A LOT of Unknown “New Devices” connecting to wired network

0uch
0uch Posts: 4 Spectator
edited December 2022 in Spectrum Archives: 2020 - Present

When connecting my laptop via eth/lan connection, I started getting a flood of notifications via the Spectrum app of devices connecting to my router. Looking at the connected device list, they were all just random MAC addrs. I had to disconnect the LAN/eth connection and re connected via WiFi so the alerts would stop. The mac addrs were in the form of..

00:00:00:00:03
00:00:00:00:07
00:00:00:00:4b
etc...

There were a LOT of these devices in a "connected" and "disconnected" state, all of them ethernet (wired) connections. None of them ever got a IP addresses assigned and my internet connection was stable during that time.

Thoughts?

Thanks

Answers

  • Randy_S
    Randy_S Posts: 514 Spectrum Employee

    Good afternoon and welcome to the Spectrum Community, @ouch!

    I was able to lookup your account and equipment with your registration information and when looking into your wifi router I see all those weird IP addresses. The signals and equipment all look great so my first thought is if it only happened when you had your laptop connected, maybe it's the ethernet card in the laptop? If it happens again you may want to open the app and in the overview section to make sure that it says "No threats detected." I am leaning toward it being the ethernet card/port but it would be good to make sure that it isn't some malware trying to do nefarious things. I doubt it is but always good to check.

    I'll be honest in that this is a new issue for me in my five years here so if anyone has ideas on what this could be, please chime in.

    Thanks, @ouch!

    Randy

  • 0uch
    0uch Posts: 4 Spectator

    Thanks @Randy_S for the quick response.

    In the App, Under Security Shield, it shows "All Clear" (last 7 days) I too thought malware at first (ARP spoofing attempts?) thou, very unlikely or maybe something new with Windows11? btw, since I can't view the raw device logs, curious if you saw any "scanning" attempts against the router? if so, that was me troubleshooting. Should the app have flagged/reported this activity by any chance? ;-)

    I also think it might be the ethernet card but haven't done any extensive troubleshooting as of yet (wireshark, windows log events, etc..)

    Seems another user had similar issues about 1yr ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Spectrum/comments/lnuooi/hundreds_of_new_devices_connecting_to_network/

    Some other users mentioned a possible bug in the Spectrum app when receiving old or refurbished routers? I did happen to see that you guys updated your app yesterday. I've been hardwired for more than a week (give or take) with this laptop with no issues, could be just a coincidence?

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.brighthouse.mybhn 

    Updated on
Jun 29, 2022

    I've been thinking about getting my own router for a while but, haven't really had any problems until this incident.

    Thanks again for the update. If I find anything on this end, I'll keep you posted.

    ps: . A minor comment about the (SaaS?) app, lets be honest, its not bad for what it does but, is less than stellar for any advanced users/usage. :)

  • 0uch
    0uch Posts: 4 Spectator
    edited June 2022

    Oh, when you were looking, if you saw "weird" device names (not the random mac address) connected, those are legit Vbox (Vmware) connections. It might be worth mentioning, that the VMs were not active when the problem occurred.

  • Randy_S
    Randy_S Posts: 514 Spectrum Employee

    Got it. It could be a one-off situation with the router and card interacting but if it happens again, let us know as soon as you can either here or a DM on Twitter or private message on Facebook. (verified accounts of course). That way we can get a live look at everything (i.e. frequencies, inside the modem, any errors popping in the system logs... that kind of stuff).

    Yeah, I am not too worried about malware because if it was it is pretty bad malware or we have really great security on our modems. Plus, you sound like you have good technical skills and probably have your laptop ready with good security software.

    Randy

  • 0uch
    0uch Posts: 4 Spectator
    edited July 2022

    Sounds good. I'll troubleshoot it sometime this weekend if I get a chance and see if I can reproduce the issue etc.. The NIC is one of those USB/Eth Hub deals. (Not a fan, as if I give a crap how "thin" my laptop is? haha)

    Thanks again @Randy_S

  • Spectator99
    Spectator99 Posts: 1 Newcomer

    I am having the same issue as well…I’m up to about 58 Devices. No threats detected. But I’m concerned this is an attempt to do a DDOS attack on some company.


    It happened last week and I changed my PW and network name. And today it started happening again. Please help.

This discussion has been closed.

Categories