It would be wrong of us not to bring up the subject of 'man-in-the-middle' attacks and that we cannot shout out enough to the general public that 'IT IS NOT SAFE!'
Once a hacker or dishonest user is on the 'free hotspot', the world of sniffing and capturing data is at their feet.
'Man-in-the-middle' attacks are basically forcing data to pass through them between you the target and the access point. As data is forced through the attacker, they are able to capture passwords, login credentials and much more.
Heightened security and IDS is required to thwart this kind of attack. The main method of mitigation is EDUCATION to the potential victim and managing the risk. |
| Data is all around us, it surrounds us and passes through us. Wireless networks present perfect solutions to a world without wires however, broadcasting information over the air comes with massive risks, especially from interception or more commonly known as 'sniffers'. The open source community offers a massive selection of free to use wireless discovery tools running on various platforms from Linux to Windows.
Wireless network survey tools such as Netstumbler and Kismet serve as great tools for wireless network discovery and confirming the existance of WiFi networks, including signal strength, SSID's, channels and much more.
Aircrack-ng suite offers superior functionality at zero cost. |