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RSA Conference Attendees Get Hacked (esecurityplanet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the but-at-least-there-were-no-booth-babes dept.

The RSA Conference "is perhaps the world's largest security event, but that doesn't mean that it's necessarily a secure event," reports eSecurityPlanet. Scanning the conference floor revealed rogue access points posing as known and trusted networks, according to security testing vendor Pwnie Express. storagedude writes: What's worse, several attendees fell for these dummy Wi-Fi services that spoof well-known brands like Starbucks. The company also found a number of access points using outdated WEP encryption. So much for security pros...
At least two people stayed connected to a rogue network for more than a day, according to the article, and Pownie Express is reminding these security pros that connecting to a rogue network means "the attacker has full control of all information going into and out of the device, and can deploy various tools to modify or monitor the victim's communication."

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Why use untrusted wi-fi? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 4, Informative

    The data plans have become very affordable. I don't find the need to ever use "free" wi-fi. I use wi-fi at home, and then it is the standard data plan from t-mobile. I don't even use the free wi-fi provided by my employer at work. ( No, no, I am not Visvesvaraya, the legendary minister of Maharajah of Mysore who kept two sets of candles and made sure he did not use the government issued candles while attending to personal work. Just simply privacy concerns, why even let the employer know my browsing habits? )

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Why use untrusted wi-fi? by Karlt1 · · Score: 4, Informative

      As of this week, all of the four major carriers are offering unlimited data that is not "deprioritized"* until you go over 22GB - 28GB.

      When we were living in an apartment where wifi interference was horrible. We typically just turned off wifi and used cellular from our phones. (We also had 100 foot cords running to all three bedrooms from the router but that's a different story....)

      I pay $200 on T-Mobile for 5 lines unlimited data with 14GB of tethering on each line.

      Depriorotized -- your data is slowed down temporarily in congested areas to allow others to go at full speed when you go over the cap.

      Throttled -- your speed is slowed down permanently to 2G speeds for the rest of the billing cycle when you go over the cap.

  2. that's why VPN or equivalent is needed in public by MarcAuslander · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use a homebrew equivalent of VPN whenever I'm in public. Started when I realized a hotel was messing with my HTTP traffic! Crucial of course is reliable access to DNS - if that's broken then even connecting HTTPS can get you in trouble if someone has gotten hold of a signing certificate and does man in the middle.

    This stuff is just to hard for the average user.