The Dangers of Unsecured Wi-Fi Networks

“Phenomenal” is one word that accurately describes the spread of Wi-Fi networking over the past few years. And as the cost of getting a Wi-Fi connection continues to decrease, “going wireless” is fast becoming part of the vocabulary of more and more people.

The benefits of having a Wi-Fi connection are already known to many. Wi-Fi use, however, brings with it various security risks for the user. Without the proper information and software, users are vulnerable to these dangers.

While someone intercepting your Wi-Fi signal is already a cause for alarm, hackers pose a more significant danger. They can launch either a passive or an active attack without much effort and often without the risk of getting detected.

Passive attacks happen when a hacker intercepts your network traffic without joining your network. The presence of the hacker, therefore, is almost impossible to detect. He or she can just sit back, relax and enjoy while capturing your network traffic – which is almost always heavy – and sift through these later.

On the other hand, active attacks happen when a hacker joins your network. While a hacker in this attack mode can be detected, he or she can launch a more disastrous offensive, targeting the entire network and the devices linked with the network.

The following are some of the dangers of an unsecured Wi-Fi network:

• Getting your account and passwords. Some applications can clearly transmit the text of your account and passwords through the network. A hacker “listening” to your network can easily get your e-mail account information. He or she can open your e-mail account anytime he or she wishes to. And if the hacker is really driven to get information about you, he or she can get more e-mail accounts to target for listening in later.

• Capturing your e-mail messages, as well as the websites you visit. Experts say that it is very easy to supervise and capture all e-mail messages, sent or received. After capturing these messages, a hacker can view these later and find the information he or she deems “interesting”. A hacker can also surf with you as you view various websites in the internet.

• Viewing your PC and hard drive. All a hacker needs is for the user to turn file-sharing on and forget to turn it off, or for the user’s personal firewall to be misconfigured or turned off – which happens to people all the time. A hacker can therefore view your personal files and all the information in your PC and hard drive – including how strong your security settings are.

• Accessing your corporate network. Is your wireless network connected with a corporate network via a site-to-site virtual private network or VPN? Your open wireless network makes both your network and the corporate network vulnerable to attacks. An improperly configured VPN can also be easily undermined. This brings to mind an incident where hackers accessed millions of customers’ credit cards through the corporate network.

• Launching spam and viruses. A hacker can launch spam and viruses through unsecured networks without getting detected. He or she may even use your e-mail to do this, so he or she won’t face the criminal charges that go with the act. A hacker can destroy the network and all PCs on it.

By: Ace Smith
Published: 05/03/08