Scam

[Bluemoon4]

Have I been scammed?

A 'solar panel consultant' visited my home and I am suspicious of what he did. He photographed the rear of my broadband router which contained details of admin password etc. He logged into the router so he could generate a quote. I have not heard from him since, he left no card or material. He promised to send the quote by email but nothing received. 

Was his purpose to gain access to my router?  If so, what can I do to protect myself now.

[bristolian · Accepted solution]

It's absolutely beyond me why anyone other than someone with ulterior motives would need to access your router to produce a quote - at the very least, they should be using their own internet connection, surely?...

Yes, a very blatant scammer there. If they've obtained your router's admin password, this would enable them to amend your router's setup & config once they're connected to your WiFi (which could be done from the immediate vicinity of your home).

Change those details immediately, before they do! The worst that can happen here, is that they change your router's config and lock you out of it. You may then need to perform a factory reset back to default config to regain control, before changing them to something only you know.

Ultimately, this person could use your home internet connection - for whatever purposes they see fit - and stop you from connecting.

[Bluemoon4]

Thank you brisolian for your speedy reply.    Is it possible that with the access they might have that they can gain other data such as banking passwords etc?

[bristolian]

Unless your router has some kind of "password safe" within the admin panel that you've put your details into, then no - the router tends not to store banking passwords.

[Bluemoon4]

Understood.  Thank you

[Ben570]

However, if I had your router details I could do things like change yours and setup a duplicate wifi hotspot with your SSID and key so that your devices connect to my own network where I could then snoop on your internet activity including looking at intercepting your passwords and browser sessions to access your bank account. So yes, it's critical that the router be factory reset and then the SSID and key changed to something new only the owner knows.