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Airports As Secure As 802.11b
INO_Fiend writes: "SF Gate is running a story about how at both Denver and San Jose Int'l American Airlines has been using unencrypted wireless to connect the curb check-in with the rest of their networks. They tested this by grabbing a laptop and hanging around the airport. I guess I might finally have something to do with a laptop and a WiFi card the next time I fly..."
Changi International airport in Singapore has free access to the Internet over 802.11b in large parts of the airport. They also have modules with a bunch of power sockets and RJ45 jacks in the center of numerous desks in case you're low on power or limited to wired Ethernet.
Changi International rules in general, actually.
It's not wireless, but the Las Vegas airport has these open Ethernet ports in the floor. You can walk up to them, plug in an Ethernet cable, and start prowling around the network (sniffing, going out to the Internet, etc.).
Why don't they just give the homes by the airport to deaf people?
It's no joke. My brother is profoundly deaf and he says the deaf community is totally clued into both cheap, airport-proximate housing and high-wage airport groundcrew jobs.
In fact, my brother works at the airport on the ground crew. When he first started his boss gave him a hard time about not wearing ear protection. My brother ended up showing him an audiologist report that indicated he needed SPL levels above 130 db just to get any registerable stimulus.
Actually, my sister is in that line of work. When you call it unskilled labour, she gets very aloof and explains that, since the job requires training, that it is not unskilled. Then I must inform her that training is given at McDonald's to flip burgers. Anyway, her pay is now $24/hour after working there yor 2 months.
They seem to think paying people a higher wage will cause spontaneous generation of competence...
I accidently connected to an AA wireless network in Dallas. This was way before 9/11. At first I thought it was a freebie for exec flyers, once i realized it was their business network i disconnected.
they had a dhcp server that assigned ip/dns to anyone that connected.
didn't even think about it again until i read this article.
Check this out: you can't even think of bringing a pair of nail-clippers on an airplane, but that little guy who vacuums the plane between flights isn't even checked for knives, guns, explosive shoes...
Yeah, right.
Messing with aircraft [anything] is a big no-no
I keep on thinking that you really shouldn't be able to mess with airplanes that easily. I mean, if a gameboy can bring down a 747, why don't they make the things a little more secure. Well, thats why they tell us to turn our electronic equipment off during a flight, isn't it? Although how you turn off your digital watch is beyond me.
Anyway, I don't think that you would get access to the plane itself, just the airport computer systems. Which should be locked down fairly well I would presume, as most employees would have to have limited access only to the bits of the system that they were entitled to use, even if you could get onto the network itself.
In fact, in a site as big as an airport, you would have to assume that the network was compromised from the start - after all, anyone could find a spare network port even before wireless. You couldn't provide security on the basis of physical network access limitations.
Just because we have 802.11b doesn't really change alot in terms of security.
My 2c worth.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
This is cock and bull.
First we are talking about a network related to airport security. If you argue with the Flight Crew you can be arrested by the FAA... this is pre-sept 11th.
The open door thing? We aren't testing products or networks transmitting misc traffic. If you leave your door open you're stupid, but coming inside is still illegal. If somoene looks into your front door... that is legal. Cops can do this to provide a weak search.
Being that the reporters haven't been arrested, we know that it's ok to walk into the 'port and see if you can get on the network. But! when you start using that network to browse the web, or shift data to make it look like you are boarding the plane with your bomb....
I mean, if you are going to use someone else's argument... know what it is. The argument you are trying to use is about port scanning and the like, not abusing the private network of an airline. Last time I checked that was 100% illegal.
If I dial into Microsoft that's ok. If I connect and download the source to XP... thats' not. Even if I just want to use them as an ISP, it's illegal.
Just because you left the door open doesn't mean you invited the neighborhood in.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Sorry, I am posting anonymous.
The airline that I worked at (until just after 9/11) had a similar setup. An average sized hub airport probably has roughly 1700 things with an IP address. To help out, I used a machine with arpwatch to help keep track of what was running and to monitor changes. About 5-15 times a week, I saw non airport workstation names and mac addresses of nic's that we did not have. Luckily we did not have anything with a DHCP server running or everyone of these computers would have fit right in. We had coverage at every ticketing area and every gate, not hard to get a good signal.
My purpose is not network security, only an installer and maintainer of the network and systems, so I made note of our insecure wireless network to our networking group and got nothing back. When I had left about a year after bringing this up, nothing had changed. With so many levels of IT support and groups of people protecting their specialized interests at the company, it was nearly impossible to find someone that could step back and look at more then what they were currently responsible for. I guess we needed a "wireless network security" position before anyone would care to address this.
I don't know what you would do once on the network. Sure you could sniff around but I doubt you would get anything useful from the scheduling and ticketing part of the traffic.
It is a big firm in Europa. AFAIK we do not use the above mentionend standard but we use another standard for baggage check in and baggage follow up. The system is so complex that even *us* the programmer have sometimes difficulty with it. The hic is the following : would it be worth for a terrorist to learn the system when they can get it easier to fake the control band of the baggage with the so called "bag tag" (simple paper a serial number and a code bar) or have an insider in the baggage loading worker team. On the other hand 6 monthes ago I would have said "terrorist learning to fly a plane to pill it into a building ? Unprobable. They could do things in a far easier way than such a long term plan.". So maybe we have to starts worry...
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visit randi.org
Drexel University does a great job of securing their otherwise unencrypted wireless traffic with a VPN.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Who cares if putting a readme_about_major_security_issues.txt on their desktop is illegal? It could save lives.
It is your kind of attitude that is responsible for the security holes that allow terrorist attacks in the first place. Airlines and airports must fix these problems preemptively. Apparently, they are unwilling to pay what that costs in this competitive market. It takes a big bang or public relations disaster to have them act decisively. If the people who found this problem just spoken to someone "in charge", nothing would have happened.
The temptation to haul anybody in on federal charges who does something that might be suspicious is unacceptable. We live in a free society, and lots of people will do things that are harmless but that my strike someone as suspicious. As in other areas of security, it's foolish to assume that the bad guys will have less knowledge than the general public, and it's foolish to assume that the bad guys won't have the resources to find the security problems easily and with low risk of detection. If you arrest everybody who appears to be trying to discover holes in your security systems, you'll mostly end up arresting harmless and you give police the tools to arrest anybody at their discretion; just about any activity can be construed to be suspicious. That's called a police state. Maybe that's where you want to live, but I don't. As far as security is concerned, the "get-tough" approach is a cop-out for companies that don't want to pay the money necessary for doing security right. It gives the appearance of security without delivering actual security.
Companies that have such security holes should get stiff fines, retroactively and for as long as the security holes persist. That's the only way to force them to invest the money up-front necessary to make their systems secure. And if that isn't sufficient, there needs to be federal regulations specifying rules and requirements for things like networking, screener training and salary, etc. People who discover security holes should be left alone (unless they try to take advdantage of them to do something illegal, of course).
Get a grip. A cornerstone of our criminal justice system is that "criminal" acts require an overt act known to be criminal, or at least reasonably expected to be so.
What this means, in practice, is that every door into an airport is clearly marked. It's not a crime to walk through an unmarked door. Walking past a door clearly marked "authorized personnel only" is a different matter.
Now look at this "problem." Computers with wireless LAN cards will automatically try to establish a connection... and these airports are offering these connections complete with DHCP and DNS services. They know that this will happen automatically whenever the owner turns on the computer, yet they've taken no action to restrict access to their system or warn travellers to avoid using their computers.
Yet you want to send the police to arrest these travelers for felonies - attempts to interfere with airport operations - for doing nothing that isn't routine in countless other places.
Worse, as some other posters have pointed out these networks can often be accessed from outside of the main terminal. A business traveler may innocently turn on his laptop in his hotel room and inadvertently connect to the airport network - and it's *his* fault for failing to anticipate this problem?
If somebody is there and clearly trying to compromise the system, throw the book at them. But if an airport just has lax security, direct your anger at the airport/airlines, not the innocent travelers.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken