IBM To Unveil Secure Open Wireless At Black Hat

Trailrunner7 writes "Researchers from IBM's ISS X-Force plan to unveil a new system for running an open wireless network in a secure mode at the Black Hat conference here this week. The system mimics the way that Web sites browsers use digital certificates to establish a trusted connection with one another. X-Force researchers have been working on the system for a while now and the company plans to demonstrate the technology on Thursday during the conference. One of the main problems with public wireless networks is that they're susceptible to a number of simple attacks, including passive sniffing and man-in-the-middle. The X-Force system is designed to get around these problems by using a digital certificate to assure users that they are communicating with the wireless hotspot that they think they are."

Comments

Re:I could be wrong but...

[TheRaven64]

No, not at all secure. You just need to sniff the traffic that nodes that know the SSID broadcast and you can connect.

Re:I could be wrong but...

[DrgnDancer]

The idea here is that you can have an open, public, wireless system that is not vulnerable to sniffers or MITM attacks. It's not for keeping your private wireless secure. As it stands right now, when I use the wireless in Starbucks I need to be careful. I need to make sure that all connections are HTTPS, or otherwise encrypted less I inadvertently give username or password information to anyone sniffing packets on the air; or setting up a rogue access point claiming to be Starbucks, but really on someone's laptop. With this technology you have a signed digital certificate and an encrypted connection. The one protects against rogue access points or MITM attacks, the latter again sniffers.

It's a clever use of a known paradigm (chain of trust) to protect something that hasn't previously been very safe. The trick will be adoption, and setting up a chain of trust. I imagine the existing CAs could issue the certificates to handle the chin of trust issues, but adoption will require some cooperation from industry. Hardware and software vendors will have to create WAPs and clients to use this tech; and companies like Starbucks and even mom and pop cafes will have to invest in the new WAPs and deploy them.