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Seriously, having a list of suspect SSIDs is having a list of terrorist's names.
You should be careful with any SSID. Additionally, I wouldn't feel much safer with an SSID pointing to an access point instead of an ad-hoc (computer to computer) network. After all, the cost of an access point is cheap. Additionally, when using WIFI, the server generally send you a DNS server address. This means they can send request to their server, rather than one you wanted, so you need to be careful the SSL certificate received is valid for the site you are trying to go to. |
Originally Posted by sbm12
(Post 10235237)
This is hardly definitive and certainly doesn't explain everything. They skip over the part about where there is no evidence of anyone actually using the "viral" networks to actually pilfer data. Certainly having your system configured to connect automatically to unknown hotspots is bad and all that much more so for peer-to-peer networks. But that doesn't make it a virus. And to suggest that it is going to become a botnet is just ridiculous. How do they plan to harvest those many, many computers that have an SSID set in them? It isn't like a hacker can spontaneously establish a "Free Public Wi-Fi" access point in range of thousands of "compromised" laptops.
The only useful thing in that article is the link at the end for how to disable ad hoc networking. The rest of it is ridiculous conjecture, but it makes for fun reading and I'm sure that the folks who published it will be having a good time at the Gartner conference selling their services to companies that could avoid the problem with a simple Group Policy setting to disable ad hoc networks. -Butters |
Originally Posted by sbm12
(Post 10235237)
This is hardly definitive and certainly doesn't explain everything. They skip over the part about where there is no evidence of anyone actually using the "viral" networks to actually pilfer data. Certainly having your system configured to connect automatically to unknown hotspots is bad and all that much more so for peer-to-peer networks. But that doesn't make it a virus. And to suggest that it is going to become a botnet is just ridiculous. How do they plan to harvest those many, many computers that have an SSID set in them? It isn't like a hacker can spontaneously establish a "Free Public Wi-Fi" access point in range of thousands of "compromised" laptops.
The only useful thing in that article is the link at the end for how to disable ad hoc networking. The rest of it is ridiculous conjecture, but it makes for fun reading and I'm sure that the folks who published it will be having a good time at the Gartner conference selling their services to companies that could avoid the problem with a simple Group Policy setting to disable ad hoc networks. |
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