Insecure Wireless Access Points:
Connecting to a wireless network like say connecting to a broadband router is not that safe. Devices like, laptop, PDA and mobile those connect with wireless connections are prone to get affected by several threats. Most common attacks when exposed to insecure wireless access points are: accidental association, malicious association, ad-hoc networks, identity theft, man-in-the-middle-attack, Denial of Service (DOS), network injection and caffe latte attack.
Prevention:
- Keep your Service Set Identifier ID hidden.
- Block the non-approved MAC addresses so as to avoid sniffing of the MAC addresses and spoof the address.
- Implementing regular WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) encryption, this is originally designed for securing wireless networks.
- WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access), a better technique than WEP provides stronger protection through encrypted passwords.
- TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) includes techniques like: per-packet key mixing along with the re-keying.
- Use SSL for the end-to-end encryption.
- Entertain network encryption through softwares from trusted authorities like: Cisco’s Secure Access Control Software, Microsoft’s Internet Authentication Service and so on.
