Phone says "Router has a weak password", Computer says, "No problems"

Avast Mobile Security Avast Mobile Security for Android
1

My wifi router is a Netgear n750.

Avast on my phone says “Router has a weak password”. So I change it. It’s now 16 random characters (upper and lower letters and numbers and symbols).

I manually scan again from the phone. It now says it’s good. Awhile later, it automatically scans again. And the “Router has a weak password” message comes up again. I manually scan to confirm - still “weak password”. I check the router again. It’s still using the 16 character password I assigned before. I try to see if the router’s default password still worked. Nope. Don’t know what the deal is.

I change the router password again, adding an extra character. Manually scan from the phone - it’s good. Later, the phone automatically scans again - “Router has a weak password”. I manually scan to confirm - still “weak password”.

What the heck? I try scanning the network using Avast Free on my laptop. The laptop says “No problems”.

I disable the WPS pin (the router won’t let you disable WPS completely, or at least I haven’t been able to figure out how). Manually check phone - says it’s good. Later, phone scans again - “Router has a weak password”. I manually scan to confirm - still “weak password”. Laptop network scan still says no problems.

I had a hunch that the phone says it’s good right after a router restart, but says “weak password” after a few minutes. So I test it - restart the router with NO changes. After restart, phone says it’s good. Manually try every few minutes. After about 10 minutes, manual scan says “Router has weak password”. A scan from the laptop still says “No problems”.

I look at the router logs. I can tell where the phone scan is testing the router password:
[admin login failure] from source 192.168.1.3, Thursday, July 07, 2016 08:31:04
[admin login failure] from source 192.168.1.3, Thursday, July 07, 2016 08:31:03
[admin login failure] from source 192.168.1.3, Thursday, July 07, 2016 08:31:02

I can also tell where the laptop scan is trying - 169 lines similar to this:
[admin login failure] from source 192.168.1.2, Thursday, July 07, 2016 08:37:19

Both the phone and laptop scans failed getting in. Why is the phone saying “weak password”?

EDIT: This is for Avast Mobile Security version 5.2.0-9813-fc7c4dc

EDIT: Just updated to version 5.2.4-12094-7ef88de. Still same problem.

2

Hi jessequentin,

Just to clarify, the router had a weak password during the very first scan and only after that you fixed it?

Also Mobile Security doesn’t scan Wi-Fi automatically, you always have to manually start the scan.

Does is help if you clear all data from Mobile Security (or do uninstall and install again)?

Ondra

3

Sorry, I set Mobile Security to ignore the “weak password” and I forgot about it for awhile.

Yes, the first time it scanned I had just set up the router and the router still had its default password.

I guess I was remembering wrong about the “automatic scans”. I think I was calling any of those times Avast said “Could be dangerous” and I scanned as the “automatic scans”.

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Mobile Security. It still shows as “weak password”.