A security consultant hired to test a factory's defenses after a previous breach discovered that the senior IT manager's admin password was "heyhackergof***yourself" written in leet speak, according to an account published October 29 by The Register. Red teamer Dahvid Schloss of Suzu Labs was brought in six months after the company had been hacked to verify that newly implemented security measures were effective. His assignment was to obtain domain admin rights, and he succeeded by exploiting an unpatched Windows 7 server still connected to the network.

The factory operated multiple Windows 7 servers linked to CNC milling machines despite Windows 10 being Microsoft's supported desktop operating system at the time, a common practice among companies running proprietary software on legacy systems. Most of these older servers had been disconnected from the domain following the earlier breach, making them poor targets for attacks like EternalBlue even though they remained vulnerable to the exploit. Schloss eventually located one server attached to milling equipment that remained connected to both the network and the domain, where he successfully ran the EternalBlue zero-day, dumped the Windows Local Security Authority Subsystem Service, and extracted credentials from WDigest. When he found the profanity-laced password, Schloss initially assumed the IT team had planted it as a decoy and didn't attempt to use it for a week.

During a briefing with the IT staff, Schloss asked who had created the admin account with the obscenity-filled password, and he noticed everyone looking at the senior IT manager. The manager's reaction confirmed that the crude password was genuine, not a test. When Schloss tried the username and password combination the following Monday, it granted him complete control over the entire network, allowing him access to additional passwords, many of which were also insults aimed at potential intruders. The IT team, still angry about their breach six months earlier, had chosen passwords intended to send a message to any future attackers who might compromise their systems.

The Register notes that the real security failure wasn't the password itself but rather the outdated machine that remained hooked up to the domain, since it was this legacy system that provided Schloss his entry point. The lesson centers on patching systems and avoiding insecure legacy operating systems whenever feasible, as the vulnerability stemmed from infrastructure rather than credential strength. The report observes that "hackergof***yourself" in leet speak actually constitutes a reasonably strong password, though certainly an embarrassing one if exposed. Organizations nursing wounds from previous incidents may be tempted to express frustration through password choices, but such gestures provide no protection when fundamental security hygiene remains inadequate. Emotional responses to breaches can't substitute for the unglamorous work of maintaining up-to-date systems and isolating critical infrastructure from network exposure.