By Ahsanul Islam, 29 August 2008 15:31
NEWS
Wireless broadband users are failing to secure their connections against people who hijack wi-fi hotspots for their own means.
According to a survey by moneysupermarket.com, a large number of Brits are exposed to 'piggybacking' - where broadband users connect to someone else's wireless router to gain access to the internet - which can lead to identity theft, fraud and illegal downloading.
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Just over one in 10 (11 per cent) of people admit to using someone else's internet connection without permission in the last year, while 16 per cent have failed to password protect their wireless connection.
James Parker, commercial manager for broadband and mobiles at moneysupermarket.com, said in a statement: "This is a worrying trend and shows some people have no conscience when sitting in front of their monitor behind closed doors.
"The consequences can be severe. It's bad enough your neighbours can use your internet connection freely but this becomes far more threatening if someone uses your connection for criminal or improper activity."
Of the 11 per cent who admitted to 'piggybacking', 12 per cent said they used the connection to download films and music regularly. For those with a download limit on their broadband connection, this could result in additional charges to their subscription.
Parker added: "If people aren't careful they could unwittingly find a huge bill landing on their doorstep for going over the download cap imposed by their provider. People need to be aware just how important protection is and the best way to do it."
Comments
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1. anonymous
Whatever. Who cares. It's mostly innocuous.
2. Roger Huffadine
Not surprising - I spent an hour last week re-jigging my neighbour's broadband wi-fi so that her son could connect his PS3.
The PS3 didn't like the WEP that had been set up - so I decided to go for MAC address filtering.
Firstly how many of the population would know how to do this?
OK now we come to Windows Vista - the PCs that also used the connection didn't have the MAC addresses on the base of the PC - so I tried to look in the obvious places - only to discover that the MAC addresses were "unavailable" using the normal control panel 'system' diagnostics.
Heh- let's try Word - Help - About - System.
Have you ever tried to navigate to this function in Word 2008 - *!*k - me what a song and dance - eventually I was able to find the MAC addresses that Windows Vista couldn't - Thank god for the good ol' Word - Help - About diagnostics.
So - not much hope for wi-fi security when Redmond Washington USA ensure that you need MCSE, a PhD and low animal cunning to discover a simple MAC address.
3. anonymous
With the easy availability of various Wifoo tools, already made somewhat infamous by a blogger on this site, it is hardly surprising that there is a great number of WiFi loaders in the wild.
Perhaps, just with a little thought and input from vendors and standards bodies alike, there is an opportunity to make WiFi properly safe, albeit implementations need to be made more robust and significantly easier for the mop's.
There will always be a way for ingenious and innovative people to hack wifi, there just isn't the necessary investment in secure wifi to make it a viable alternative to grown up communications. And all these Open Source routers are just nonsense. I've even noticed a rogue AP in my area.
4. Phil Rae
Sometimes people like to share their Internet to passers-by... however, there's no real safe way to do that - either you're open to anyone, or else your locked down to either an encryption or a MAC address list.
How about the implementation of a half-way deal? The owners of the wifi can offer out a limited bandwidth so casual piggy-backers can check their emails, surf the web, user VOIP, however not allow them to use P2P, BBC iPlayer, etc.
Perhaps then the likes or decent mobile browsing could take-off, creating a true wifi cell network, away from the charges/limits of 3G and the threat of mis-use to the wifi owners.
All it should take is some funky router firmware to become standard.
5. Sarah
I notice the article makes no mention of the fact that all ways of securing your wifi routers (except WPA-PSK encryption) are just as easy to break as with no security.
I was going to buy one of those Internet radios a couple of months ago, until I discovered that it does not support WPA (it only supports WEP encryption).
Manufacters of these sort of device need to wake up to this because (as Roger says) most people are not even aware of this let alone even fewer (like me) actually know how to do this sort of thing.
6. Roger Huffadine
You are right Phil and - BT already have such a system called "BT- FON" - I use Virgin when @ home but have BT @ my boat mooring and have subscribed to BT - FON this means that other BT customers can use their user names and logons to connect thro' my wi-fi It also means that I can get an internet connection via BT - FON in the Marina when I go there. What is needed is for other wi-fi routers & service providers to co-operate with such a system to make the accidental hot spots legal.
7. Mike Hart
The true spirit of the Internet. Many thanks to these generous people for helping out strangers on the road needing to check email and maybe get a quick bit of work done.
Sure, there are criminals around to abuse the generosity, but helping people that you don't know in this way is the true British spirit, so let's not let the odd miscreant spoil it for the rest of us.
Keep your Wi-Fi open chaps - just make sure you're not providing access to your home/private network!