With my previous router I could access my router’s admin page by using its internal IP address such as 192.168.1.254. If I attempted to connect to the router’s admin page using the external internet IP address then it would fail. That sort of makes sense as by using the external IP address I am blocked like anybody trying the same from the internet.
If I try the same with a BT Smart Hub 2 by putting my external internet IP address in a browser, I can access the router’s admin page. Interestingly the event log shows a login from my internal IP address and not the external one.
Does this mean my router’s admin page can be accessed from the internet? Fortunately, no. If I try using a VPN service then it fails to connect.
I am on full fibre so maybe this feature is a side effect of using the WAN port to connect to the internet.
This raises a couple of questions:
- Does the fact that the admin page is accessible using the external IP address, albeit from the internal network, leave the router vulnerable in some way?
- Can a user of the BT Hotspot on the router do the same thing and access the router’s admin page via the external IP address? Public Wi-Fi is not active on my router so I cannot test this.
If anyone wants to try it for themselves go to https://whatsmyip.org and cut and paste the IP address shown there into a browser window.
