The unvarnished truth about unsecured Wi-Fi

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The unvarnished truth about unsecured Wi-Fi

by Elinor Mills

Chances are you don't leave your front door unlocked. And you shouldn't leave your Wi-Fi network unsecured either. Many of you may have heard this before, but many still seem to not be doing anything about it. You should. Here's why. With a $50 wireless antenna and the right software a criminal hacker located outside your building as far as a mile away can capture passwords, e-mail messages, and any other data being transmitted over your network, and even decrypt data that is supposedly protected.

Someone could also join the network and launch attacks on your computer and any other devices using the network at that time. If file sharing has been left on or the personal firewall is misconfigured it's relatively easy to access the computer via an open Wi-Fi network. Someone could upload an executable program to a file on your hard drive that steals data or just leaves a back door for future access. And if you are using the network to connect to a corporate network through a VPN (virtual private network) an attacker can get into the corporate system too.

"The most dangerous thing is a direct attack," Don Bailey, a security consultant at iSec Partners who is also an expert on telecommunications snooping, told CNET. "The threat is not only that your traffic can be sniffed, but that an attacker can get access to all your data and connections on your computer, even those supposedly secured by SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) and TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption." Unsecured Wi-Fi networks can be attractive for scammers to launch spam and virus attacks because the attack would be tracked back to the Wi-Fi network but not to the computer of the criminal who exploited the open network.

Read full article here: http://news.cnet.com/security/