Turn Off Xfinity Wifi Hotspot – Mixing in the heavy lifting, the most annoying part of moving in 2020 was not having internet in my new place while I waited for services to be set up. The situation is compounded by the fact that apartments are essentially a huge LTE dead zone.
An available Wi-Fi network represents the siren call of connectivity: xfinitywifi. This is Comcast’s public network for its customers to use while they are out and about, transmitting from many of their customers’ modems. While an attractive option, public Wi-Fi networks are always extremely dangerous. In addition, Comcast presents security risks to its own customers when it uses its hardware to transmit over the public network.
Turn Off Xfinity Wifi Hotspot
Public Wi-Fi networks are a security nightmare. Frankly, they should be avoided at all costs. Yes, even in cafes.
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First, you can’t tell if a public Wi-Fi access point is a legitimate service or a rogue hotspot deliberately set up by attackers to steal data. A wireless network called “O’Hare Guest Wi-Fi” launched at O’Hare International Airport can attract hundreds of connections – including business travelers working from their laptops – even on fake networks created by bad actors!
Also, many public Wi-Fi networks are unencrypted – meaning that the data you send or receive on the network is visible to anyone who connects and searches. Even if the network is legitimate, cybercriminals can gain access to the network themselves and deploy hardware or software tools to read any and all data you send or receive on the network.
In a premium bundle for its customers, Comcast’s xfinitywifi network is particularly vulnerable to these two flaws, while adding at least one other pretty serious vulnerability.
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Comcast uses its customers’ modems to transmit to a secondary access point called an Xfinity WiFi Home Hotspot. It is a public, unsecured network, always called “xfinitywifi”. Because Comcast uses both business and residential customer modems to transmit this network, you’ll see it a lot.
The fact that Comcast uses its own customers’ proprietary hardware to transmit secondary public networks is a problem in itself. While it can be turned off, the default behavior of the device is to turn it off. Comcast says that the xfinitywifi signal is broadcast completely independently of the private home network, but the fact is that they come from the same device. Unless there is physical separation of the hardware in the device, it is possible for an attacker to bridge the gap.
No password is required to connect to xfinitywifi, but once connected you are taken to a secondary login page where you must enter your Xfinity username and password to access the internet. Once connected, Comcast will log the device’s MAC address so they can automatically reconnect in the future — although they’ll have to log in each time they connect to the network with a new device.
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The default auto-connect feature is quite dangerous, especially for a public network as wide and accessible as xfinitywifi. You can hop in and out of dozens of xfinitywifi networks while commuting on the T in Boston. You can often also connect to an xfinitywifi access point at a coffee shop, and the convenience of automatic connection encourages users to use the network. If you are the type of person who checks and emails on your commute, or sits down to work in a coffee shop (in non-pandemic times), your email and everything you transmit on such networks can be read.
To illustrate how you can get hacked in one of these situations, we can look at known vulnerabilities caused by unsecured networks and Comcast’s implementation of MAC address authentication and automatic reconnection.
The vulnerability CVE-2017-9475 was publicly released in the summer of 2017. It describes how cybercriminals connected to xfinitywifi can launch a sniffing attack to collect the MAC addresses of other users on the network. From there, attackers can spoof their MAC addresses to appear as other legitimate Comcast customers and have Comcast attribute any criminals’ potentially illegal cyber
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This is just a small example of the data that cybercriminals can collect and use to make unsuspecting Comcast customers look like the criminals themselves!
To make matters worse, it is very easy for an attacker to spoof the xfinitywifi network. Comcast does not clearly communicate the auto-reconnect feature to customers, so if no other options are available, it is possible that someone will find and connect to a fake xfinitywifi hotspot.
Such users are expected to enter their credentials upon connection. Clever attackers can even add Xfinity branding to their fake login pages to sell this illusion.
Xfinitywifi No Longer Showing As Connection
This network has a small lock icon and asks users for credentials before trying to connect. Unlike xfinitywifi, XFINITY access points are encrypted.
To connect to an XFINITY access point, users must download the Xfinity WiFi Hotspot app and log in with their Comcast credentials. Don’t have an app? No secure Wi-Fi access.
The app has a map of non-residential access points and helps ensure that users do not accidentally connect to rogue networks.
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Taken together, these improvements make the XFINITY network much more secure than the xfinitywifi network, but it’s still public Wi-Fi.
A certain hacker connected to the same hotspot can collect encrypted data and can crack several encryption methods – it just takes more time and effort.
Also, data sent via HTTP instead of HTTPS is not encrypted and can still be viewed by others connected to the network. Users can usually make sure they connect to websites over HTTPS or avoid websites that still use HTTP, but since there’s no interactive address bar, there’s no way to check whether mobile messenger and productivity apps do this.
Why Can’t I Find My Xfinity Wifi On My Laptop?
Finally, we recommend that you never use public Wi-Fi. There are so many variables out of your control. It can never be guaranteed to be completely safe.
If you travel or want to work in a coffee shop, the safest thing to do is to use a personal data access point. In a pinch, almost any modern smartphone can be used as an on-demand Wi-Fi router. This puts you in control and gives you the confidence that your connection is secure.
If you cannot use smartphone tethering and are absolutely connected to public Wi-Fi, we recommend at least using a VPN (Virtual Private Network). A VPN encrypts your data, making it difficult for potential attackers to intercept sensitive information.
How To Change Your Comcast Xfinity Wifi Password
After I moved, settled in, and set up my own Internet connection, I turned off the Xfinity Home Hotspot feature on purpose. Fortunately, Comcast makes this pretty easy.
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Blane is the Marketing Manager for Fractional CISO. He leads the editorial work for Fractional CISO, helping the team share their cybersecurity knowledge on the blog and monthly newsletter Tales from the Click. Blane has a background in digital marketing and broadcast journalism. Before joining the Fractional CISO team, he helped run marketing for electric car dealer Current Automotive and was a television news reporter for NCTV17. Blane holds a BA in Broadcast Communications from North Central College. Many MacBook users have a problem of automatically and constantly connecting to unwanted Wi-Fi when Xfinity Wi-Fi is available. This happens even for users without an Xfinity account. The user is not connected to an active Wi-Fi network with Internet access and is stuck on an Xfinity Wi-Fi connection. Even setting another connection as default does not permanently solve the problem – it works until closed. When users turn their MacBooks back on, they’re back on a non-working Xfinity network. If you encounter this problem and want to avoid it, follow the steps below.
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If you’re dealing with an Xfinity network (you’re using your computer at home, not on your Wi-Fi connected to a specific Xfinity network), you can remove the Xfinity network from your Mac.
If you use your MacBook on the go (and most of us do), you can prioritize which Wi-Fi network you use and put the Xfinity network at the bottom. That way, when you’re in that area, your MacBook will connect to the higher priority network.
Let us know which of these methods is most convenient for you. Also, if you know of other solutions to this common problem, feel free to share with us in the comment section below.
Everything You Need To Know About Xfinity Wifi Hotspots
Kevin is a dynamic and self-motivated information technology professional with a thorough understanding of all aspects of network infrastructure design, implementation and management. Proven track record of delivering large, mission-critical projects simultaneously, on time and within budget.
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