The WiFi Cops are coming!!!

[Sindawe]

I certainly hope that this is a side line activity during routine patrols, NOT something an officer is tasked with full time.

DOUGLAS COUNTY - The Sheriff's Department says it's going to start warning computer users that their networks may be vulnerable to hackers.

It may be one of the first law enforcement agencies in the country to do so.

Wireless computer equipment and home computer networks are everywhere these days. Almost all new computers sold are used by consumers to network in one way or another to other computers.

However, that wireless capability may be making those computers vulnerable to hackers.

"If someone is driving by on the street they could easily use your internet access to commit a crime, whether it's fraudulent credit card transactions or surfing child porn or something else," said Brian Radamacher, a member of the Douglas County Sheriff's Special Investigations Unit.

Wireless computer equipment sends out signals that sometimes broadcast for up to a mile.

Other computer users can home in on those signals and use them to access the internet.

Radamacher says hackers can use stolen Internet access to make fraudulent credit card purchases or bank transfers.

He also says hackers can upload or download such things as child pornography.

That activity would be completely invisible to the legitimate owner of that network.

However, it could make innocent computer users vulnerable to having their computers confiscated during police investigations.

"The unfortunate thing is when we go to issue the warrants or something else you may end up getting your computer seized because of it," said Radamacher. "A lot of times it can take months to get your computer back after the processing."

The Sheriff's Department plans to equip several of its community service and patrol cars with devices that detect unprotected computer networks.

In cases where investigators can figure out who owns the networks, they'll try to warn of potential security issues. They'll also drop off brochures with instructions to computer users on how to password protect their networks.

Source: http://www.9news.com/acm_news.aspx?...MPLATEID=4525fe63-ac1f-02d8-002a-f131478a1f55

 

[geekWithA.45]

Well, people DO need to attend to some fundamentals of security.

You _should_ have a hardware firewall running on your residential router, and it should be configured reasonably.

You _should_ have at least 64bit WEP setup on your WIFI, and arguably even a MAC address whitelist.

You should also have a _good_ software firewall running on your various wifi enabled machines, such as ZoneAlarm.

When I'm @ HQ, no less than 12 open to the world residential wifi connections are available for me to parasite upon, if I so chose.

If it is your _intention_ to share out some bandwidth as a public courtesy, then you should also split off a separate vlan for that purpose, so as to sequester your own stuff.

 

[ArmedBear]

I think it's GREAT that the Sheriff is warning people about this.

I know some things. Since I do this for pay and I'm not a hobbyist or hacker, I've never done anything illegal or "bad", but I do know things that have happened. I used to supervise a bunch of college student employees who majored in IT and CS, and believe me, they did do things -- on their own time -- and they blabbed about it. What they did was usually in good fun, and until recently, it wasn't always even illegal, but man it taught me how vulnerable these networks are to this sort of misuse!

In most cities, you can drive around and find a free Internet connection that comes from someone's house, where they have a sloppily-configured wireless port. Hackers use these connections to hide their tracks. The tracks point back to YOU, if it's your connection. Not good. Depending on what they do, you could have a LOT of explaining to do.

It's like leaving your car sitting around with the keys in it and a gun on the seat. Someone takes the car, robs a store with your gun, gets away in your car, then parks it back in front of your house, and you will have a VERY unpleasant time for a while.

 

[GTSteve03]

You _should_ have at least 64bit WEP setup on your WIFI, and arguably even a MAC address whitelist.

OK, I admit I'm a bit of a WiFi security n00b.

Right now my home network consists of a sole WiFi router with a MAC address whitelist and restricted DHCP client # to match the # of computers in the house. But I don't have any encryption running.

How dangerous is this?

 

[muddyboots]

Dangerous? Where I live, not very because I have no close neighbors. For city folk you are asking for it. Enable encryption on your WiFi router. WPA if you have it because WEP can be cracked. My WiFi is WPA encrypted with 63 random ASCII characters. Nobody comes in without my permission.

 

[WayneConrad]

Here's what a MAC address whitelist is: Your wireless card or router will only accept wireless traffic that says that it's from a MAC address on the whitelist.

Do you see the problem there? It's easy, in software, to tell a wireless card what MAC address it should have.

WEP is pretty easily hacked, too.

But I still recommend using a MAC address whitelist, and turning on WEP. It's the difference between a door with a weak lock on it, and no door at all. At least have a door.

If you need real security, though, it's best to use a tunnelling protocol such as IPSec for anything that goes over the air.

 

[taliv]

i'm not one for the conventional wisdom here. i intentionally leave my wireless unprotected. (although i certainly run firewall software on my laptops)

edit: although, i think this is one of the FEW AND FAR BETWEEN examples of LEOs in a more appropriate "serve and protect" mode, so I have to disagree with the original poster. I am happy to see the sheriff letting folks know.

This is no different than a cop walking through the business district at night, twisting doorknobs, and then suggesting the proprietor be more dilligent when he finds an unlocked door

 

[taliv]

i also agree with wayne. don't be fooled by vendor claims on WPA and MAC whitelists and whatnot.

it's easy to spend a couple million on big firewalls and intrusion prevention equipment, and still get hacked.

believe me when I say a $60 router from wally world that says "FIREWALL!!!" on it is a weak lock.

 

[azredhawk44]

Also: Don't advertise your SSID. Set up your client machines to know your wireless device's SSID, but don't let the hub advertise it.

Beware using encryption, though, if you use technologies like Citrix. encrypting wireless packets that are already encrypted by other technologies (like citrix) will result in extremely large packets that can end up fragmenting. This will result in lost packets, more often than not.

MAC address whitelist: good idea.

 

[motorep]

Mine's encrypted. A customer of mine is next to a Holiday Inn, they've got 5 or 6 open wireless accounts that you can just log on to. It's very convenient when I'm in their store...

 

[CNYCacher]

I am fine with this

. . . as long as they drop fliers as a courtesy and don't try to charge me with anything for having my WIFI wide open. I am happy to let anyone driving down the street use the internet on my dime. I think it should be free for everyone anyway. My computers run linux and stay patched so I am not in the least bit worried about "hackers".

 

[ctdonath]

Ditto. I leave mine open as a courtesy to others, and assume the same for other open WiFi nodes.

Considering open wireless routers continually announce their availability to the public who just listen, and say "yes" to any access request, and shutting this off is trivial (RTFM), methinks this is a reasonable state.

Not that I mind local police reminding people that hanging a "c'mon in" sign on their router is an invitation to everyone, including trouble.

 

[Firethorn]

Oh Boy Oh Boy.

I just graduated class today on Cisco Wireless.

While a MAC whitelist will indeed prevent casual browsers, it won't even slow down a serious hacker.

Now, it depends on your router, but there are far better protocols, depending upon your router and wireless nic than even WPA/WEP. I'd recommend 128bit versus 64 bit, and use good password techniques to avoid dictionary attacks.

There's more advanced protocols like EAP-FAST where you actually log into the router. AES encryption is better than 3DES, for example.

Like others have said, if possible, turn off SSID broadcast and enter it manually. It can still be sniffed, however, especially with no encryption. Another point is to reduce the power your AP transmits at, this will reduce the range somebody can connect to your network at.

If you want your point to be open, with some routers(Yes, I was trained on expensive fancy Cisco ones), you can have it effectivly create two networks using VLans (virtual lans) - one open for your niceness in sharing, one private and secured for your personal use(oh, and with some QoS so you get bandwidth whenever you want it).

 

[lamazza]

Yes... and then you go to starbucks and get a trojan through insecure wifi and you bring it back to the office and...its party time for the hackers yipee

 

[Numinous]

Theres really no sense in talking about VLANs here. I doubt anyone is going to have a router in their home that supports it. If they do have a router with VLAN support, I'm pretty sure they will already know about it and how to use it since it's a costly upgrade to get it and no one would do it if they didn't know the benefits of it before hand.

Secondly, it is a very good idea to encrypt your data if you're sending it over wifi. Setting up a VPN is a great idea. Who cares about some extra fragmented packets. So they get resent.. whoopdie doo... this is the way wireless is designed to work and while it may be slower at least your data can't be sniffed out of the air.

 

[Jim March]

Back to the original post: as long as all of this is voluntary and educational on the part of cops, no problem. Downright cool in fact.

If however open WiFi ports are ever described as "enabling kiddie porn downloaders parked outside your house" or whatever...seriously not cool.

It looks like that's what all this WiFi hysteria is leading up to.

Stop and think a sec: if any of us ever needs to post a completely anonymous and untraceable message to somebody else on the Internet, free WiFi is a Godsend. It's almost as useful as encryption, moreso in some cases.

Tin foil hat time: is THAT what's really causing what appears to me to be a widespread media hysteria campaign against open WiFi?

 

[taliv]

doubtful, jim. while it's been my plan for many years (and i even mentioned it in the thread on anonymity that derek started a few months back) the fact is that it's very rare that any of us would need anonymity.

however, on a pretty much hourly basis, juvenile delinquents use open WAPs to launch scans and attacks. cleaning that up would also be a Godsend, as it's hella annoying. I'm sure that's the impetus, with plenty of corp backing

 

[Firethorn]

All this 'we have to stop the pedos' makes me wonder just how many are out there?

I mean, I'm pretty sure that they're fairly rare, I think the police only catch a few hundred a year, while they catch thousands of murders per year, and who knows how many rapists, etc...

And we're passing how much legislation in pursuit of them? Especially when internet pedo's are the smallest category, the majority end up being family or a trusted friend of the family of the abused.

 

[Snake Eyes]

I'm still waiting for someone to reasonably and clearly explain exactly what danger I'm in by leaving my WiFi open.

Sure, they get a free ride on the internet. Sure they can d/l kiddie pr0n. But it's not ON my machine, and I fail to see how someone can log on to MY machine just through my WiFi.

However, when I moved into my current residential cell block (apartment complex) and found EIGHT other WiFi signals, I immediatly encrypted mine and named the network "F--- Y--". Don't wanna share? Me neither.

 

[doofus]

It seems that I'm in the minority here; ironically, I'm an infosec engineer at a fortune-50 company.

So what if I want to give wireless access away for free? I don't need somebody to come to my door and tell me that I can't do so.

I'm still waiting for someone to reasonably and clearly explain exactly what danger I'm in by leaving my WiFi open.

There are two main issues:
1. Encryption. Your banking transactions (and most of your web-based logins) will be point-to-point encrypted via HTTPS, but your other traffic may not be (HTTP, POP3, etc). This gives an attacker the potential to gather a great deal of information about you, which may be leveraged in further attacks.
2. Given that most wireless routers use Network Address Translation (placing your home system(s) on an RFC-1918/private network), allowing somebody onto your wireless network removes that layer segregation. It's like putting your computer out on the public Internet (unless you're using a more expensive wireless router that supports VLANing or virtual access points).

While a MAC whitelist will indeed prevent casual browsers, it won't even slow down a serious hacker.

Absolutely true. The source and destination MAC addresses are in the clear. Anyone with a wireless sniffer and about 30-seconds can gather the MAC of a valid client and spoof it. Similarly, disabling SSID broadcast is easily bypassed by injecting probe requests -- encryption or not.

All this 'we have to stop the pedos' makes me wonder just how many are out there?

Exactly...it sounds suspiciously similar to Bush's rhetoric about "stopping the terrorists" or the typical Brady-bunch crap about doing it "for the kids". The alarmists in our society make quick work of those who can't think for themselves.

 

[Snake Eyes]

Meatcurtains--

Thanks for the explanation. However, I haven't the foggiest idea what any of that actually means. It looks like Guinness Kool Aid, and I don't drink that either.

Specifically:

other traffic may not be (HTTP, POP3, etc). This gives an attacker the potential to gather a great deal of information about you

I've used open WiFi before, and never seen some one elses data streaming by. How can they see mine? (I'm not stupid, just ignorant. I'm guessing it can be done, but how and why??)

And:

wireless routers use Network Address Translation (placing your home system(s) on an RFC-1918/private network),

I'm sorry, I don't speak Geek. Could you translate that into German? I don't speak that either, but at least I won't feel so stupid.

Finally:

like putting your computer out on the public Internet

This just sounds suspiciously like "Oh my Lord! if we approve CCW laws the blood will flow in the streets!". I'm sure I should be terribly afraid of the danger, but I'm really busy watching "Cops" reruns right now.

Oh my.....I'm contributing to OT thread drift again.....sorry.

 

[taliv]

snakeeyes, the danger you're in is that somebody parks on your street for 5 min, downloads some porn or logs into some political forum like DU and makes threats against the president.

the first you hear about it is when you come home one day and find the po po have searched your entire house, and carted off your computers to be analyzed. a month or two later, you get them back along with a form letter saying they decided not to press charges against you. have a nice day.

personally, i'll take that chance. like i said, i leave mine open. but you can't reasonably say there is no danger. it's pretty clear.

another danger is that someone tries to hack into company x from your network. company x finds your IP address all over their firewall logs and calls your ISP. your ISP turns over a log of all your activities, participates in any LE activities and/or suspends your service. you also get scary letters from the lawyers at company x, who have nothing better to do than sue you.

 

[doofus]

I've used open WiFi before, and never seen some one elses data streaming by. How can they see mine? (I'm not stupid, just ignorant. I'm guessing it can be done, but how and why??)

How: Using a wireless packet analyzer like Kismet.
Why: That's too broad a question to answer accurately. People hack for different reasons...some for technical interest, some to satisfy some voyeuristic need, some to feel empowered, some for financial gain...the list goes on and on.

I'm sorry, I don't speak Geek. Could you translate that into German? I don't speak that either, but at least I won't feel so stupid.

I'm sure you're far from stupid. So basically, you get assigned an IP address when you get on the Internet. It's somewhat similar to a street address for your house. A private address is one that only exists on your local network, and isn't connected directly to the Internet. So with a typical wireless router, the router is the device that's connected directly to the Internet, while your computer is connected to the router.

With this setup: you visit a webpage on your computer, your computer sends the request out through your router, and your router forwards it on to the destination site. You can have 5 systems connected to your wireless router, each visiting the same website...all the website knows is that it's getting 5 requests from the same IP address (your router); since the 5 computers on your wireless network aren't directly connected to the Internet, they don't exist as far as the Internet is concerned...only your router does.

When you allow somebody onto your wireless network, they get assigned (or take) a private address...just like your home system. Since they're on the same local network, they have the potential to touch your system directly, rather than have that extra layer of protection that the router affords you.

While this isn't a technically correct description, it's close enough for government work.

This just sounds suspiciously like "Oh my Lord! if we approve CCW laws the blood will flow in the streets!". I'm sure I should be terribly afraid of the danger, but I'm really busy watching "Cops" reruns right now.

Na, it's not a critical issue...my network is open as a matter of fact. It's just that keeping your system from being directly connected to the Internet mitigates a lot of "script kiddie" attacks.

 

[mtnbkr]

While a MAC whitelist will indeed prevent casual browsers, it won't even slow down a serious hacker.

Very little in commonly available wifi gear (ie the stuff you get at Best Buy) will slow down the serious hacker. You're mainly keeping the script kiddies and neighborhood kids out. However, that's all you need most of the time.

BTW, with all the excitement around WiFi, people seem to forget that you can still use ethernet. If your router and PC are accessable to each other, use the wired network and avoid many of the security problems. Fewer issues and better reliability...

Chris

 

[Gewehr98]

I kind of enjoy it, actually.

Over the last month or so, as I'm chauffering my wife to job interviews around Madison, I've been taking my laptop with us while I wait for her. Madison is neat, each time I park in a downtown location there are between 10-20 WiFi nodes that my laptop can see, and usually at least 5 of those are unencrypted. So I check my email, browse the web, visit THR, etc. Either folks are blissfully unaware of their lack of wireless security, or they're trying to make a regional bandwidth broadcast for free. Either way, I appreciate being back in the SIGINT/ELINT game. Our new home up here in Sun Prairie will be 100 Base-T wired for all the servers and workstations, although I may use the laptop in encrypted 802.11g somewhere outside my office.