DIR-655
Hardware version: A3
Firmware version: 1.10
As an experiment, I DISABLED encryption on the wireless side of one of my DIR-655s. Anyone within range could connect. I did this because I live in an apartment building, and someone has been changing the names of unsecured wireless networks to vulgar names, so I wanted to see if they could hack my router. I figure that a hands-on approach is the best way to learn about security. The only computer connected to this network was a laptop that had no personal information on it. I also shut down the laptop except for when I wanted to access the router.
Anyway, I changed the admin password on the router, to a random alphanumeric password. Sure enough, after a few days, my SSID was changed to "SECURE YOUR NETWORK A******". Additionally, the admin password on the router was also changed to an unknown value.
Is what I described possible? Or did I make a stupid mistake and not change the admin password as I thought I did? Another thought I had is that maybe if I accessed the admin pages in the router, using a wireless connection, and someone was sniffing traffic, that they could have sniffed my admin password when / if I connected wirelessly (I don't remember if I did this).
Any insight would be greatly appreciated as I want to know how this was done, if I made a mistake, or if the router could possibly has a flaw in the firmware.