Is there any way to activate Linksys' "secure easy setup" without physically pushing a button on the router

[kranky]

The non-profit agency I am involved with has a Linksys wireless router. I installed and configured it about a year ago and never a problem since. Yesterday I can't get one of the desktops to connect to the network but it is reporting another network is visible.

There's no other buildings close enough for the network to be from another building, so I look at the router and discover that the network SSID has been changed. The router says SES is active (the new SSID was "Linksys-SES-44982") and I did not activate it. It was working fine on Wednesday. SES is a feature of Linksys routers where you push a button and it autoconfigures a bunch of security stuff for you and on the PCs using the router.

I'm trying to figure out if there is any way for someone to have done this without physically pushing the button on the router. Nothing malicious was done.

 

[cmetz]

kranky, as far as I know the whole point of SES is that you MUST have physical access to the AP and press the button - otherwise it would be a big security problem.

I've never used SES and wouldn't recommend you do either - just set up WPA2-PSK manually.

 

[kranky]

Thanks. I needed to be sure that the only way for this config change to happen is that someone physically pushed the button on the router. I didn't want to say anything to the management about what happened if there was some freak way that SES might have been activated.

I'll tell them to be more careful regarding who they let into the communcation room.