Supout.rif contains sensitive data

  • admin new name in logs
  • Your external IP address
  • Structure of your network (IP and MAC addresses), especially when you use static DHCP
  • NAT configuration listing all the opened ports
  • VPN logins and passwords in unencrypted form (passwords should be stored as hashes, even in the device, and shouldn’t be exported, isnt it, Mikrotik?) I am afraid to imagine what Mikrotik does need this for…
  • Wireless SSIDs
  • Your scripts

Be careful!

supout.rif file is voluntarily shared with mikrotik support, so we can help you.
if you think that you can’t trust us with your public IP, I don’t think we can help

The only half-reasonable thing to not trust anyone, even the device itself, is the passwords, which should be stored as hashes indeed…

Except when using CHAP…

By design, CHAP needs both ends to know the actual plain text password. And CHAP is used in hotspot (if you use HTTP CHAP), in pppoe (if you use (ms)chap(v2)), and in RouterOS login (via API at least, if not also via other protocols), and in User Manager… So like potentially everywhere. But since it’s a setting, RouterOS would need to keep the plain text password anyway in case you decide to enable CHAP.

I can send any non-sensitive information on demand by myself.

Public IP isn’t the greatest problem.

I was displeased when found my VPN password inside.

But a lot of people can’t or may not be sure about it if their configuration is more complicated. You might report your public IP as being one, and yet the supout.rif might say differently.

Such non-sensitive information is part of the file exactly to minimize the time MikroTik support staff needs to help you - instead of asking first about one thing, then asking again about another thing (that is their second guess to the problem), the file tells them from the start everything they might need to know.

I can sympathize, but again, CHAP is used by some VPN protocols… The device stores it in plain text because it has to, so with or without supout.rif, if someone gets ahold of your device, they have the password. Generating a supout.rif and giving to MikroTik support is the equivalent of giving them physical access to the device - in both cases you trust them that they will keep the data only to themselves and not misuse it.

As written by others, such passwords often cannot be stored as hashes. Especially when you are on the client side.
When you make a VPN to another system and store the password, the local router needs the real password, not
the hash. A hash can only be used to validate another party logging in to your system, not for your system logging in
to a remote system.

Believe me, everyone has this problem. Some routers store the passwords in a “mangled” way, but invariably it
is a two-way encryption and tools exist on the internet to get the real password out of them. So it only gives you
some false sense of security.

This is pretty much the definition of what is needed to help you troubleshoot configuration issues. If you are sending the support.rif file to MikroTik, then you are clearly having an issue with the router. They needed to be able to see everything to be able to help. Leaving out the details is liking telling your doctor that you have a headache, but leaving out the fact that your wife hit your head with a 2-by-4.

If you REALLY need the help, and you do not trust MikroTik, and you are forced to send the file, then change all your passwords first. Your external IP can easily be retrieved. In fact it’s likely logged by this forum. You Listening Ports can be found with a port scan. You already broadcast your SSIDs to everyone around you. Your MAC addresses are fairly useless to anyone for anything other than knowing hardware manufactures.

That leaves scripts and passwords. Both are needed to diagnose issues. Passwords would be a more specific issue. Yes, it would be nice to exclude them from the Support.rif, if the issues isn’t VPN related. I agree with you on that point. The scripts - I don’t know. Personally, I don’t have anything that someone hasn’t already thought of. Though one does contain the URL of my custom blacklist and dynamic filtering rules to protect my servers. But nothing that I would worry about.

Bottom line, If you don’t trust MikroTik, don’t send it. It’s nothing that the NSA doesn’t already have anyway. :wink:

Oh, and it’s not like they are hiding the fact that this info is in the file. They give you the tool in to see what is in there.