Sydney awash with vulnerable wireless LANs

Source: ZDNet Australia

L33tdawg: Well if you're in Malaysia, you don't have to go as far as Sydney to find vulnerable wi-fi connections. Just head down over to Mont Kiara. The last time we checked (we being spoonfork and myself), we found about 13 access points and only 2 of which had WEP turned on... So what are you waiting for? Grab your stumbler and play!!!

ZDNet Australia recently discovered the extent of the threat on a wardriving mission with Jason Edelstein, principal consultant for IT consultancy Sense of Security.

Having demonstrated the ease with which wireless LANs are detected through a technique known as wardriving, Edelstein pointed out that many companies were putting themselves at risk unnecessarily, by failing to take simple measures to prevent wireless hackers from gaining access to their data.

“Many of the systems are easily detected using readily available, affordable software, and don’t even have the default encryption turned on,” Edelstein said. He pointed out, however, that the vendor default encryption was by no means desirable as the keys were easily obtained by people in the industry. “If you can find out who the manufacturer is, it is easy to see into the network if the default encryption is used.”