Charter Spectrum issued impressively horrible advice Monday night.
The second largest cable and Internet provider in the United States urged football fans to show appreciation for their favored Super Bowl team by weakening their passwords.
The “@GetSpectrum” Twitter account posted a tweet that encouraged people to adopt one of two login options for their Wi-Fi networks: “GO_NEWENGLAND!” for Patriots buffs and “GO_ATLANTA!” for Falcons followers. The post displayed a Spectrum-branded GIF, a short loop of two images featuring the recommended passwords as well as a football and “XO”-chalked football maneuvers.
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“Change your WiFi password and show guests where your loyalty lies!” the Spectrum account tweeted gleefully, a post that has since been deleted. “#ThatsMyTeam”
Charter (CHTR) should know better. Anyone with an iota of security consciousness understands that people should protect their wireless networks and home routers with long, strong, unique passwords.
Failing that, attackers can run amok on a network: stealing Internet access, snooping on traffic, hijacking sessions, or conducting man-in-the-middle attacks (when an attacker intercepts and potentially manipulates communications). So long, privacy.
“Not only should you not do this. @GetSpectrum Should apologize for trying to make people less safe,” commented Geoff Belknap, chief security officer at the chat startup Slack, in a post on Twitter (TWTR).
https://twitter.com/geoffbelknap/status/823717552689790976
Charter did not immediately reply to Fortune’s request for comment.
The Stamford, Conn.-based cable company has 31,700 followers on Twitter. That’s probably a good place to start the “sorry” circuit.
Here’s some actual cybersecurity advice. After you host a viewing party with a bunch of random people at your home asking for your Wi-Fi password, go ahead and change it to something new and stronger.
For more on password security, watch:
Celebrate whichever football team all you want. But please, go the old-fashioned way and just paint your face.