Most network equipment comes from the manufacturer with a common default password. The bad guys know what these are.

Before, or as soon as you attach a piece of equipment to our network (or anywhere else, for that matter) IMMEDIATELY CHANGE THE PASSWORD.

If you don't, your device will be hacked in a matter of seconds and you may lose control of it. It might be used to launch attacks on other systems, and may become part of an evil botnet spreading badness across the Internet.

Hardly a week goes by that I don't get an official complaint from somewhere that a device on our network has been compromised and is being used to attack other devices.

The root cause is almost always that someone attached their shiny new computer/router/accesspoint/camera/toy to the network and it got taken over because they forgot to CHANGE THE PASSWORD.

Oh, and be careful when upgrading firmware: in far too many devices when you flash new firmware into it, the password gets reset to the factory default. Be sure to check it afterwards!

Thank you. - Brian