{"id":2973,"date":"2010-10-15T12:20:53","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T11:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/?p=2973"},"modified":"2015-09-09T19:37:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:37:25","slug":"half-of-home-wi-fi-networks-in-the-uk-vulnerable-to-hackingwifi-jacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.darknet.org.uk\/2010\/10\/half-of-home-wi-fi-networks-in-the-uk-vulnerable-to-hackingwifi-jacking\/","title":{"rendered":"Half Of Home Wi-Fi Networks In The UK Vulnerable to Hacking\/WiFi-Jacking"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once again WiFi security<\/a> is in the news, this time a new report in the UK shows that almost half of UK home WiFi networks could be compromised within 5 seconds.<\/p>\n

While that sounds a little dramatic it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot still have no WEP key at all. And even if they have a WEP key with the tools available for WEP cracking<\/a> now – it wouldn’t take that long to hammer it down – especially on a high traffic network.<\/p>\n

From the study it seems that about 25% of networks are totally password free, I’m not sure how far they went though in terms of trying to connect. Perhaps a lot are public wifi spots that employ proxy services and require you to ‘login’, perhaps some are using MAC address white-listing.<\/p>\n

Nearly half of all home Wi-Fi networks in the UK could be hacked within five seconds, according to CPP. The life assistance company employed the services of ethical hacker Jason Hart to roam six major cities across the UK and use specially developed software to identify home networks that were at risk of ‘Wi-Fi jacking’.<\/p>\n

Wi-Fi jacking see hackers piggybacking on a net connection and allows them to illegally download files, purchase illegal goods or pornography or even sell on stolen goods, without being traced. It also allows them to view the private transactions made over the net, providing them with access to passwords and usernames that can subsequently be used to commit identity fraud. CPP’s research, which has been conducted ahead of National Identity Fraud Prevention Week, revealed 40,000 home Wi-Fi networks were at risk.<\/p>\n

CPP also said that despite the fact 82 percent of web users believe their Wi-Fi connection is secure, nearly a quarter of private wireless networks are not password protected <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s also interesting the amount of web users that use public or wifi-jacked networks without using encrypted connections. Grabbing login and password combos at a rate of 350 per hour is a LOT of passwords.<\/p>\n

If they also recorded the associated services that could be a massive stash of credentials. It just goes to show if you do a little war-driving<\/a>, what kind of goodies you can go home with.<\/p>\n