A Reader Helps Me With My Sirius XM Canada Issues….. And Exposes A Security Issue Too
Earlier this week, I went off about some frustrations regarding Sirius XM Canada and their inability to get the traffic function working in my newly purchased 2016 Hyundai Tucson. A reader took pity on me reached out to me with this:
“Hello IT Nerd. I’ve had numerous issues with Sirius XM Canada customer service which makes Rogers and Bell’s customer service look good by comparison. I’ve been so frustrated with them that I have signed up all my vehicles for Sirius XM US service using the address of a vacation property I have in the US and an American credit card to do so as the American Sirius XM operation is far better than the one in Canada.
I can’t help you with your traffic issues, but I think I can help you with using the Sirius XM app. You need to use the phone number associated with your account as your username and your password. So if your phone number is 905-555-1234, you need to enter 9055551234 as your user name and password as that is the default username and password that is generated when the account is created by Sirius XM Canada. The customer service reps don’t do a good job of explaining that and it took some trial and error for me to figure this out. On that note, don’t you think that this is a serious security hole as anyone who knows anything about you can potentially use that info to do something bad? I’d like to know your thoughts on that.
I hope that helps you.”
I tried what this reader suggested and I was able to get the Sirius XM app to work. More on that in a second. I was also able to log into my account at this link and see all of my billing info, my address and what I was subscribed to. So, if I had evil intentions and I knew enough about someone who purchased a vehicle in the last couple of months (as they would still be on the three month Sirius XM trial), I could in theory use a social engineering attack to get some personal information. Clearly, Sirius XM Canada has a security weakness here that they truly need to do something about. I’d strongly recommend that at the very least, they should stop using people’s phone numbers as passwords and instead use a randomly generated password that is e-mailed to the user at the time of activation in a e-mail that is separate from the username. If they don’t I fear that they’re just asking to get pwned.
As for the Sirius XM app, it was kind of cool I must admit. My wife and I were streaming music off of one of the Sirius XM Jazz stations while cleaning up last night. I can see how this might make your Sirius XM subscription more useful. I’ve also confirmed that we are supposed to get Sirius XM traffic as part of our subscription by looking at our account details. So I am not sure why they can’t get it working. But I am beyond caring at this point. The subscription will die in late December and a potential customer will disappear from Sirius XM Canada’s radar screen along with it. In the meantime, I would like to thank the reader who e-mailed this tip to me and brought this security hole to light.
June 28, 2016 at 11:03 am
I wanted to let you know that I have the same missing traffic signal in my car, an Infiniti Q50 2014 which I purchased used in May 2016. I am still on the free 3 month trial and, for the first month or so, I was getting the traffic signal, no problem. Actually, at first I didn’t have it as part of the free subscription so I called siriusxm to add it. They did, for free, and it worked. Then after about 1 month it no longer showed up. I went to check my account at the sxm site and saw that there was no indication that I had navtraffic. So I called and they added back, but still no signal. I called multiple times and each time they re-sent their signal (told me to stay on ch 1 or 184 for the signal to be picked up), I tried the resend myself from their phone system as well as from a url they provide. I could even see the signal refresh notification on my navi screen. I accept the refresh, but still no signal. Now I am wondering whether the Infiniti dealer had something to do with it because at around the same time the signal stopped, I had brought my car in for a recall item which was a reprogramming of the steering software (for direct adaptive steering aka drive by wire), but I doubt it. It’s a mystery to me. While I had brought my car in to dealer for other work they gave me a loaner which was a 2016 Q50 and it had the traffic signal working no problem. I wish I could figure this out, however deficient navtraffic is (it only shows traffic flow on highways).