Democratic Convention Computer Security Threat?

Hiawatha writes "Excuse me for tooting my own horn, but check out my story in today's Boston Globe about a possible security problem at the Democratic convention next week. If visitors plug insecure laptops with wireless connections into the convention's wired network, there could be trouble..."

Comments

Re:Not a realy problem

[afidel]

Uh, so they are going to ban laptop's? As the article points out over half of laptops sold in the last year have WiFi built in. Thanks to XP's auto-connect for WiFi if a person was able to setup an AP outside they could surely find an XP laptop which could be compromised which was plugged into the wired network. THAT is what the article is talking about.

Hey...

[Otter]

...at least the Globe has found a story besides "Why can't you whiny Bostonians take the convention in stride, like New Yorkers?"

As long as Globe writers are reading Slashdot, perhaps someone could clarify this mystery:

• Yesterday's paper claimed that "11% of Boston businesses" believe they'll make more money as a result of the DNC, with 78% expecting the same or less>
• Today's paper featured the Causeway Street pizzeria owner who put up a pro-Bush banner and is closing his store for the week and going to Canada, expecting more trouble than business if he stays open.

Excuse me? If a guy who owns a freaking pizzeria across the freaking street from the Fleet Center doesn't think the convention is worth any money, who the hell are those 11% of business owners who think they'll benefit?

Practical security

[syrinje]

The democratic convention is only providing wired security so that people who bring their own notebooks to the party can plug in and share their dirty pictures with each other.

So WiFi security is not something the Convention IT staff can control, with or without WEP

Nearly a 100% of all notebook computers brought to the convention will have WiFi built-in to them. A few sensible folks will have their notebooks configured to only latch onto "known" access points using wep. The rest will have their WiFi settings set to allow both ad-hoc and infrastructure mode and to connect automatically. These people, while probably smart and successful in other ways, are likely to be morons who are network-retarded.

As a result they are unlikely to realise that while they are busy and connected to the wired network, their computers have also connected automatically to the blackHatAP that has been setup in the closed-for-the weekend in the Pizzeria across the street. A convenient and cheap SEP field will prevent them from seeing small message dialogs that inform them of these events.

Some of these notebooks, as a result of belonging to irresponible morons, will already be 0wn3d. They are twice as likely to not be updated using windos update..

In short these computers will behave pretty much the same as the drunk chick flahing her tits at Dayton Beach on spring break (altho why we only see photos of them on the internet and never meet any of these tipsy goddesses IRL is beyond me. Oh wait, that probably cuz I'm here instead of there.!)

I would lay a wager of 10 bucks at odds of 5-1 that at least 5% of the notebooks on-site will automatically latch onto the first available AP AND be unpatched enough to allow arbitrary code execution using a buffer overflow vulnerability on some port OR have a trojan installed which can be leveraged to execute said code

What is the hapless IT support guy to do? Here are a few ideas -

1. Ban all notebooks since you cant physically inspect the WiFi settings for the visitors. This idea will probably get you fired though. The morons are rich and powerful and will get their way in penetrating your network with their toys. Being a BOFH is only going to get you shafted.

2. Set up your own AP with repeaters all over the place and hope the ho-ing notebooks latch on to your WiFi network first. I am sure this is not foolproof, but will probably bring down your risk by 70%. The boundary cases here are truly that - the notebooks on the wifi edge might see a better signal from blackHatAP and kiss up to it.

3. This may not be legal in your Locale/state/country. Adherence to local laws is your responsibility. Disclaimer made, heres the option - Install a jammer for WiFi frequencies. Better yet, if you have the Secret servce on hand, get them to do it. Simple and efficient. Unintended Interference is a bizatch though.

I thought about the option of setting up a WiFi farm that would create its own /. effect on the BlackHatAP but that wouldn't scale well if the BlackHat set up more than one AP....