Someone said to me yesterday that they had heard about serious flaws in wireless networks which were only discovered very recently and that given a particular method breaching wireless security is childs play. Ive done a few googles and have found nothing. Has anyone heard anything similar? Baring in mind hes had his internet cut off it must have been on the TV and not some random inaccurate article on the net. This is the only wi-fi story the bbc reported on yesterday which wasnt really news to me and I did bring it up in conversation which he didnt say was the story he'd heard. BBC NEWS | Magazine | Wi-fi worry Its a worry but a bit silly given every kid has a mobile!
Wireless Security has always been an oxymoron at best. Nearly half of all wireless networks employ no security at all, i can say thats true for where i live... most of the open networks i see still have the default SSID. And i pity the fools who disable SSID broadcasting and yet leave there networks wide open, there the same kind of people that disable DHCP to "make there networks more secure". They might be laughing believing that there safe & secure, but he who laughs last laughs hardest ;P
Security through obscurity is not security at all, just obscurity. Disabling SSID broadcasting won't make your network any more secure. Cryptographically, from a brute force and a mathematical perspective, as long as a strong enough encryption key is used with WPA/2 then the security is extremely difficult to break. One should employ the same principles in choosing a key as they do choosing a password. I haven't heard of this new flaw, and the claim seems far too generic. When we transmit credit card information online, it is commonly encrypted with RSA 128bit or stronger, and we generally have faith in the system. It's perfectly possible to break this encryption providing one has a computer powerful enough (think quantum computing). I'm not sure if you were using the phrase as a cliche, or you actually meant that.
Zeus, This issue came up a while ago - have a look at this thread for some additional info: http://www.hardwareforums.com/wireless-modems-security-14919/
Im talking about something discovered in the last 2-3 days, not the wep thing. I'm on my out now so i'll stop by and ask him where he heard/saw the report.
I would say the biggest problem with wireless, is that its wireless! aka with a decent sized directional antenna and a direct line of sight you can get a fair distance away and still have a usable signal strength... Oh, and Access Control lists (Using MAC Addresses) are next to pointless... think of them like writing your name on a piece of paper, which the guard checks at the door, if the name is on his list he lets you pass.
Agreed, MAC address filtering is easy to overcome. Although I use a wireless network at home, I still don't think its a total replacement for a good, hard wired infrastructure. Yet, it also has its place for laptop users.
