20+ years ago I managed the installation of a high performance compute cluster purchased from IBM. Their techs did all the initial installation and setup, right down to using their well known default password of “PASSW0RD” (with a zero for the ‘o’) for all root/admin accounts…. It took less than 20 minutes for it to be compromised by an IP address in China.
At least other vendors like HP use random root/admin passwords printed on cards physically attached to new equipment…
When I used to rack and stack servers, many moons ago, we would always connect them to a switch with LAN only so we could use SSH/SCP to harden them before they got exposed. This was for .gov stuff that would get attacked instantly.
20+ years ago I managed the installation of a high performance compute cluster purchased from IBM. Their techs did all the initial installation and setup, right down to using their well known default password of “PASSW0RD” (with a zero for the ‘o’) for all root/admin accounts…. It took less than 20 minutes for it to be compromised by an IP address in China.
At least other vendors like HP use random root/admin passwords printed on cards physically attached to new equipment…
When I used to rack and stack servers, many moons ago, we would always connect them to a switch with LAN only so we could use SSH/SCP to harden them before they got exposed. This was for .gov stuff that would get attacked instantly.