KCOM-owned Eclipse FAILS to cover up the password 'password'

Exclusive A Register reader has exposed another privacy howler at KCOM - this time involving its Exeter-based ISP Eclipse Internet, which displays passwords in plain text to users via a webpage.

Customers who log in to their personal Eclipse user site are somewhat surprisingly shown the password for their account.

Today's tip of the hat from Vulture Central goes to Steve Foster, who got in touch following our story last week about a KC engineer allegedly revealing a spreadsheet containing unencrypted user IDs and passwords. He told El Reg:

I doubt that you'll be surprised that the utter incompetence within Kingston Communications goes further than Hull. At least as far as Exeter, in fact.

I attach a (redacted) screen grab from Eclipse Internet's management tool.

You'll see that they not only keep their passwords in plain text, they obligingly display them to you in full when you log into their website.

And yes, it does allow 'password'.

Anyone else feeling a tad bit insecure?

We asked KCOM to explain the lax security on display over at Eclipse Internet.

A spokeswoman at the company told The Reg:

Customers can view their password within our secure Eclipse customer portal only after they have logged in using their user name and password to authenticate their details. During the login process the password is not visible in plain text.

Which left your baffled correspondent wondering why the password would need to be displayed, if the same password was used to access the site.

We were also curious to know if there was any progress with the apparent KC spreadsheet blunder that El Reg recently uncovered.

But KCOM's spokeswoman told us there was "no update" on that particular story. ®