Not so long ago, war driving was the latest hacking method, consisting of driving a car around areas populated by business, equipped with laptops and 802.11b NICs that would detect wireless access points.

Not surprisingly, this would pick up many unsecured wireless networks. Based on U.S. anecdotal evidence, 60 to 80 percent of wireless LANs hadn't had the most basic steps taken to secure them, making them as difficult to break into as buying a wireless NIC and downloading free software.

Then the concept went one step further: war flying. A group from the Bay Area Wireless Users Group flew over San Diego in a light aircraft at 500 meters, picking 437 access points within a short space of time. Of these, 102 (23 percent) had WEP enabled and 258 (59 percent) hadn't changed the SSID that the wireless access point came set up with. The SSID, or default name, is broadcast every few seconds, making it very easy to scan for known names.

Interestingly, Cisco and NetGear were among the minority picked up. Linksys was by far the most prevalent, indicating either that Linksys had the largest share of the market, or that users (generally businesses) with Cisco or NetGear access points had locked them down to a much higher degree.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

ep further: war flying. A group from the Bay Area Wireless Users Group flew over San Diego in a light aircraft at 500 meters, picking 437 access points within a short space of time. Of these, 102 (23 percent) had WEP enabled and 258 (59 percent) hadn't changed the SSID that the wireless access point came set up with. The SSID, or default name, is broadcast every few seconds, making it very easy to scan for known names.

Interestingly, Cisco and NetGear were among the minority picked up. Linksys was by far the most prevalent, indicating either that Linksys had the largest share of the market, or that users (generally businesses) with Cisco or NetGear access points had locked them down to a much higher degree.

In Australia, the situation seems fairly similar. The concept of war flying was actually pioneered in Australia, about a week before the Bay Area Wireless Group, in Perth.

The results are very similar: 95 access points were picked up, with the majority having default names (and a few recognizable, large companies that did not have WEP enabled).

One log file could not be published on the Web site, as it contained conversations, e-mails, and clear Netbios traffic for known users.

The only surprising fact is that, I suspect, for most readers none of this is actually surprising. Our own organization has a wireless access point and notebooks with wireless NICs.

From inside our building we can pick up another network from a neighboring business (it's a large corporation, the name of which most people would recognize). Their access point doesn't have WEP enabled, and is happy to assign any of our wireless-equipped users with an IP address and default gateway. In the interests of being a good neighbor, we made their IT manager aware of this, who seemed fairly disinterested (the access point is still unsecured).

1 2	| Next page

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[an error occurred while processing this directive]