Tag Archives: Security

Intel Haifa Staff Tap Away In WiFi Bomb Shelters

The Hizbollah-instigated bombings did not affect the work of the staff at Intel Corp’s Haifa research center in Israel as the company’s bomb shelters were fully equipped with a wireless network. Intel Israel spokesman Kobi Bachar said he does not “see any impact on output” of the weekend incident in Israel’s largest city, adding thatContinue Reading

BT Advocates WiFi For Spying On Neighbours

BT believes WiFi can be beneficial to the work of local authorities. The technology, according to BT, can be used to locate noisy parties and, with the installation of Webcams and sensors, may help fight crimes. The company hopes to expand the coverage of its ‘wide radius’ wireless broadband networks to six new cities inContinue Reading

Crazy-Long Hacker Sentence Upheld

A Federal appeals court upheld the 9 year sentence for Brian Salcedo for his role in the wireless intrusion and attempted credit card theft at a Michigan Lowes hardware. The sentence is the longest ever handed down for a computer crime. Some question the harshness of the sentence given that other credit card fraud schemesContinue Reading

Cisco Details Wireless LAN Vulnerabilities

Cisco announced two severe vulnerabilities in Wireless Control System software. The vulnerabilities could lead to attackers gaining encryption keys, and in one case, full control of the administration utility. Cisco is planning an update soon. Via [informationweek.com]Continue Reading

Poor Wi-Fi Drivers Can Expose Laptops

Drivers are the next playground for WiFi attackers. Improperly written drivers can fail in spectacular ways. 2 researchers are planning on showing off the results of thier use of the tool ‘lorcon’ at Blackhat USA to sieve control of wireless hosts through this new technique. Via [news.zdnet.co.uk]Continue Reading

Does Wi-Fi Security Matter?

A study by researchers at Indiana University found that nearly half of Wi-Fi networks are “horribly insecure” as they do not run any form of encryption. The results of the survey, which involved 2,500 access points in Indiana, were disclosed at the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security at the University of Cambridge earlyContinue Reading

Wi-Fi Drivers Open Laptops To Hackers

Wireless security just got a whole lot more complicated. Researchers from ISS, using freely available tools, have found that the drivers for some wireless devices are vulnerable to attack. Using lorcon, a wireless packet fuzzer, they were able to get wireless cars to fail in interesting and sometimes frightening ways. They are holding back detailsContinue Reading

Locking The Wireless Network

Securing wireless networks in homes and small businesses is no longer a big problem today as the market is teeming with products and solutions to address this concern. One such product is Kaspersky Lab’s Internet Security 6.0, which includes an anti-hacker application and software that can scan wireless and wired networks and restrict access toContinue Reading

China Abandons Encryption Talks

The delegation from China walked out from the opening session of the two-day meeting on wireless computing standard in the Czech Republic. The Asian nation is currently struggling to get global accreditation for its locally produced encryption technology called WAPI. The country accused the U.S. of employing unfair tactics to prevent WAPI from getting accredited.Continue Reading

Rise In City Wireless Networks Raises Security Fears

Once again, RSA security took a wardrive through downtown London and found open access points belonging to businesses. This is the 5th year they have done this survey and the number of detected networks went from 1,751 to 2,747 with 26 percent wide open. Still not a very complete survey, but it certainly mirrors statisticsContinue Reading

Protecting The Wired From The Wireless

Identifying rogue accesspoints is not aneasy task. It is easier though when your orginization has a no-wireless policy. Network Chemistry has released a couple new products for rogue hunting. 2 fairly expensivehardware units, but also an opensource tool that analyses the wired network hosts, looking for access points. A fairly useful tool for the wirelessContinue Reading

Learn To Do A Wireless LAN Site Survey

George Ou covers how to do a WLAN site survey with a number of tools, including Netstumbler and Airmagnet survey. He also covers the proper usage and importance of a spectrum analyzer to a proper WLAN survey. In the end you get what you pay for. The commercial software is easy to use and hasContinue Reading

Lock Out Wi-Fi Users With Fingerprint Reader

Silex Technology unveiled a new device that will require fingerprint identification to gain access to a WiFi network. According to a Silex spokesman, the Silex Bio-NetGuard will likely be sold for $499. It contains a Fujitsu MBF200 fingerprint sensor, which when touched, will prompt the device to scour its database of 27,000 unique fingerprint keyContinue Reading

AirMagnet Rolls Out Voice-Over-Wi-Fi Analysis Tool

AirMagnet is offering a new network analysis tool to help network managers identify voice problems over wireless networks. The AirMagnet VoFi Analyzer can detect these problems in real time, keep track of voice traffic from one device to another, and determine if both wireless APs and wire-side devices are configured just right. The company saidContinue Reading

Google Wi-Fi Deal Gains Powerful Critics

The Google/Earthlink plan to unwire San Francisco is meeting with some serious opposition. While groups like the ACLU and the EFF applaud the economic and social benifits of the plan, but also have grave concerns about the privacy of the system. The latest person to step up with concerns is city supervisor Jake McGoldrick. NoContinue Reading