Mark Lanctot wrote: > jonheal;182579 Wrote: > >> Being pretty much an idiot when it comes to networking stuff, please >> clarify something for me: >> >> As I understand it, encrypting your wireless broadcasts (hopefully) >> prevents an eavesdropper from reading the packets you send out into the >> atmosphere. Protecting the integrity of your network, and the machines >> on it, is another matter entirely. Am I wrong in that assumption? And >> if all your broadcasting is music packets, is it that big of a deal to >> protect them? >> > > I'm no more than a novice at this myself, but yes, this is something > outside a normal LAN. If your machines are infected with various > backdoors, it doesn't matter how secure your WPA2 passphrase > is...although interestingly an attacker could still not find it out > unless he was running a keylogger as you typed it in. > > But in regards to just broadcasting music packets and packets destined > for an SB, you need to protect them even more because: > > - there will always be traffic an attacker could monitor > > - when broadcasting music, a steady stream of packets will be present > to analyze > > As I understand it, these attacks work better when you have lots of > packets to analyze. Once an attacker derives a passphrase, he can (at > the very least) use your IP address for whatever purpose he wants. > This includes child porn - there have been several high-profile busts > recently where police are tracking offenders based on IP addresses, and > you would have to prove your wireless network was compromised in > court...meanwhile your name would be published in the local media. >
Possibly, but the chances are rather small. I read an article on the exact way of cracking a WEP protected network recently and the 'bad guys' have devised a little trick to get lots of packets. They just grab one of your encrypted packets and (re)send it to one of your hosts. The host will receive the packet and reply to it, another packet to analyze... The method used in the article required two PC's, a special Linux boot CD and two wireless cards with a specific chipset. Quite a hassle still.. > Once an attacker is on your LAN, he's also one step closer to accessing > your hard drive contents. Your router won't stop him, it'll be up to > software firewalls if he gets that far. Blocking by MAC address is > useless here - he'll be able to see the MAC addresses of all the > devices on your network and can clone one. > It's a funny thing wireless security. If you leave your PC/network open to the internet you *will* be targeted by thousands or tens of thousands of (professional) automated hacking attempts. If you leave your wireless network open you will be open to attack by a dozen neighbours. The chances of your neighbours wanting to target you and having the skill to do are possibly not so great. One of my neighbours has his network open, I even used it briefly once or twice, but I've never gone so far as snooping around on it. The chances of anyone around me wanting to go through the hassle of cracking a WEP key would be fairly slim. Then again I read an interesting attack recently in which the bad guys would drive thru the city with a PC that automatically looked for open networks with no encryption. The PC would be loaded with knowledge of popular routers and their configs and default passwords and would contact any routers it could find and change the DNS settings so it would use a DNS server controlled by the attacker. By manipulating DNS responses they would be able to get between the victim and there banking websites. I'd take the trouble to set up WPA encryption if I were my neighbour. I don't know which one it is, perhaps I should snoop around a little ;) Regards, Peter _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
