Network Breach

[cameraken]

A neighbour has 4 devices (2 laptops, 2 iPhones) that are supplied by their employer and managed by Telus' Fully Managed service. I discovered all 4 devices attached by wi-fi to my non-Telus home network.  They all connected themselves at around 05:00 to 06:00.

I collected these 4 devices' MAC addresses.  The neighbour confirmed that the devices were used by them. 

I used my router's admin services to blacklist the MAC addresses of these devices. 

How could these devices have connected to my non-Telus home network? 

[FuzzyLogic]

Are you sure they were connected to your network or simply hunting for an access point?

I've seen delivery drivers phones show up in the Telus Connect app and I'm fairly certain they didn't actually connect to my network.

[cameraken]

Hi FuzzyLogic:

They had IP addresses; their MAC addresses were visible.

They showed up on the router "connected" list. Network scanner software Fing showed them on the "connected" screen.

Bye

<Admin edit: Removed personal info>

[FuzzyLogic]

My understanding is that while devices are being authenticated they will show up as connected (with an IP and MAC address).

How to force users to authenticate before getting IP address from DHCP - Quora

[cameraken]

Hi FuzzyLogic:

This Quora material is way beyond my level of tech knowledge on networking.

However, all four devices were on my network for around 3 hours which seems like a long time for authentication.

This "authentication" idea does not explain why the 4 devices were trying to join my network in the first place. They have their own network in place, managed by Telus' Fully Managed service. Note that I identified the 4 devices' users and have been speaking to them regularly about this.

Bye

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[mod edit - private info]

[FuzzyLogic]

Routers have timeouts and it may take some time for them to release the IP addresses. It would take some networking tools on your end to determine if they are actually accessing your network as opposed to simply looking for an access point. It's possibly your neighbour's access point may have been briefly unavailable so the devices were trying to find an access point that would allow them to connect.