Wifi Warning

As many of you will know, I have warned a number of times about the insecurities that come with Wifi.

This has been published yesterday.

The long & short of it? Using the most popular models of wifi routers, your settings can be changed if you're not VERY careful, just by visiting the wrong website. This can open up all sorts of scary things, like you thinking that you're logging in to hotmail, but it's not, it's a fake login page, and someone has just stolen your password. Alternatively, you could be made to use a proxy site, that would capture ALL details you enter into the browse, and save them (online shopping/banking anyone?).

Thinking outside the box a little, please make sure that your wifi routers are configured properly folks. Changing from the default password does not actually protect you from this kind of attack. It merely makes it take longer (and not much longer in most cases).

By "properly configured" I mean that you only allow certain MAC's access, that you're not offering DHCP, nor broadcasting SSID, and that your password is something secure. If you want help making a secure password, click here (I'd recommend the bottom radio button - "(0-9a-zA-Z.?:;!,)" with a length of at least 10, but they can be hard to remember). At the very least, almost all wireless communications should be conducted in WPA, if not better (but not many support anything better than WPA).

If the above is not done, you're basically asking for someone to steal all your money, all identities in your household, and run up a massive bill for broadband going over it's usage limits.

Please note, I'm not trying to do a good dose of scaremongering here, I just geniunely hate wifi, it's the least secure technology that I've seen in years.

If anyone wants specific help with securing their wifi router, drop me a message.

I use WEP and other things, though I keep forgeting to secure it via mac address, I should know better. I find the best security of all is to turn it off when not need, which is most of the time. Shame the routers don't have a button on the front, 'Turn off/on WiFi'.

Yup, wifi opens up a lot of scary possabilities (even with just the tools I sent a PM to you about).

Ever seen a website with the text backwards, and all images upside down?

I agree completely, turn the damn thing off unless you really, absoluetly need it. I'd rather knock holes in my walls & run cables, than someone have the possability of stealing my bank details from a few hundred feet from the house.

[Viney]

My bank details are not on my PC.

Originally Posted by Viney

My bank details are not on my PC.

By that I assume that you mean you don't do online banking. Because if you do, it's possible to capture them (a remote possability, I know, but a possability non-the-less).

The point isn't that it's only bank details that are vulnerable though.

Originally Posted by Grinch

I use WEP and other things, though I keep forgeting to secure it via mac address, I should know better. I find the best security of all is to turn it off when not need, which is most of the time. Shame the routers don't have a button on the front, 'Turn off/on WiFi'.

Still haven't managed to hack my router yet, though I don't think I ran the collector long enough to get all the IV's I needed.

I haven't tried forced attacks yet.

[Viney]

Originally Posted by Baph

By that I assume that you mean you don't do online banking. Because if you do, it's possible to capture them (a remote possability, I know, but a possability non-the-less).

The point isn't that it's only bank details that are vulnerable though.

Well all the accounts that i used to access are now invalid. I only access my current one from work. As for anything else. theres sod all else on my PC worth having, other than 100gb of music!! But i do see where you are coming from.

As proof it could be done, after a conversation with a neighbour (quite a good friend), I cracked his 128bit WEP key, logged onto his network, changed his favourites, gained access to his amazon account and ordered a book on network security (could have deleted vital system files if id been that way inclined)

Needless to say he now is using WPA and VPN

Pete

Originally Posted by netsurfer

Needless to say he now is using WPA and VPN

WPA is better, but not invulnerable. VPN? I'm not sure why a home user (as that's all you've said about) would need VPN, but still, there could be things that you haven't said about in your post.

Like I always say, it's a matter of trade-offs. Much akin to riding the bike & the delicate art of keeping upright.

oooooooooh, mis-understood, from the title thought you had just let off