IBM software aims to shut down "drive-by hacking"
Source: C|NET
Reaper: and just when I have my sniffer up and working
SAN FRANCISCO, June 17 (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp. on Monday announced technology designed to close some of the holes in corporate wireless networks and prevent outsiders from stealing data through "drive-by hacking."
The IBM software sits on laptops and PCs, analyzing traffic on an internal 802.11 wireless network and sending data to a centralized server, said Dave Safford, manager of the global security analysis lab at IBM Research in Hawthorne, New York.
"It turns machines into wireless auditing sniffers," he said.
The server then "crunches" the data and "spits out" a report that can tell administrators if there are wireless access points that have been misconfigured, Safford said. Access points are physical connections to the computer network located throughout a site.
Wireless networks are cheap, costing less than $100, and convenient to use, allowing workers to carry laptops from office to conference room to cafeteria.
Because they are easy to misconfigure, they pose a significant security risk, easily exposing a computer network to attackers outside the building using specialized wireless sniffers
