European Parliament Culls Public Wi-Fi Access After Email Hack

hypnosec writes "A white hat hacker managed to break into multiple email accounts thereby forcing the European Parliament to cutoff its public Wi-Fi access. The French security researcher apparently performed man-in-the-middle attacks on multiple email accounts in a bid to expose the poor security at the Parliament. Through an internal mailer, members of the Parliament were informed that a 'hacker has captured the communication between private smartphones and the public Wi-Fi of the Parliament (EP-EXT Network).' The public Wi-Fi has been cut-off indefinitely and users at located at Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg have been advised to apply for certificates and switch to more secure networks."

Comments

Re:forcing them to cutoff access?

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems the more rational response is the fix the problem instead of treating the symptom.

On the medium term the Parliament will take additional measures to further secure the communication to the Parliament.

It sounds like they're shutting off the public system and encouraging people to use a more secure private system until they can figure out how to fix it. There's no point leaving the vulnerable system running while you work on a fix.