Subject: [NEXTEL-1] CRIME is in the AIR

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 13:20:05 -0500

CRIME is in the AIR
Source: Albuquerque Journal
Publication date: 2004-02-18
Arrival time: 2004-02-19

Wireless Fidelity Makes Some Web Users Inviting Targets

Drive-by crime has gone high-tech. In wireless zones cropping up across
the country, thieves can steal everything from cash to a new identity
from the comfort of their cars. All they need is a computer, a wireless
card, an antenna and the proper victim.
WiFi, or wireless fidelity, has caught on quickly because it allows a
user to access the Internet from anywhere in a "hot spot." Here, WiFi
technology allows computers to talk to each other through high frequency
radio waves bouncing off antennas, instead of through cables.

Local public hot spots include the University of New Mexico student
union, Flying Star cafes and most recently, Civic Plaza in Downtown
Albuquerque. Rio Rancho officials are working toward making the entire
city wireless by the beginning of 2005.
Bill Elwell, special agent with the FBI's Albuquerque division, said the
rising popularity of wireless "absolutely" increases security risks.

"It's gonna be a constant vigilance on our part as well as (that of the
users). We do have people out there who are trying to intrude in
wireless."

While he would not go into specifics, he said agents are taking a
proactive approach to protect WiFi users.
"It is part of our newly formed cyber-crime squad," a squad every FBI
field office received after Sept. 11, 2001, when the agency listed
cyber-crime as a national priority, Elwell said.

Safety varies

How safe a wireless system is depends on how it's set up, said David
Ackley, assistant professor of computer science at UNM. "It can range
from abysmally bad security to pretty OK, pretty good actually, but very
few people have it set up to be that good.

"Even if you think you're secure because you use the privacy and
security stuff the providers give you, you're still not probably doing
that well because the stuff that really works is just starting to come
out now."
Most computers set up for WiFi come with technology called wireless
equivalent privacy, or WEP. This was the first protection available, and
it's flawed, Ackley said.

He gives this analogy: Imagine that every time you turn on your
computer, you hand over to a stranger a piece of your house key. It
won't take long before the stranger will have the entire key and can
open the door at will.
The only way to make the computer safe using WEP is to change the
security configuration regularly, and most people are not going to take
the time to do that, he said.

The "latest and greatest" security is wireless protected access, or WPA,
Ackley said. This automatically changes computer "house keys" every few
seconds, making it virtually impossible to crack.
Still, the biggest problem may not be the equipment, but the user.

"Most consumers don't turn (the security) on ... and all of a sudden
you've got your neighbors and everybody else who can tunnel into that
network," said Tim Gorman, vice president of Access Technologies, an
Albuquerque computer firm specializing in wireless.

In cases where WiFi users have little or no security on their systems,
the information being transmitted virtually rides the airwaves on a
silver platter.

"It's like you took a cable and hung it out on the street for anyone to
plug into," says Caleb Shay, a computer programmer and network
administrator for Candent in Mount Arlington, N.J.

Shay is a computer guru -- capable of everything from installing
security to configuring programs to getting into someone else's system.

The technology that's easiest to turn on, such as WEP and firewall
protection, typically requires little effort to crack.
Firewalls, which protected the landlocked computer well enough, do "no
good whatsoever" for wireless users, he said.
In fact, technocriminals are "trying to find businesses that are
counting on their firewall to keep people from getting into their
servers," he said.

Criminals are looking to steal your identity, find financial records or
hop onto your Internet account to send spam or pornography, traceable
only back to you.

They can also place viruses on a system or conduct "keylogging." This
keeps track of every key a wireless user presses in an effort to get
passwords, or other information, that access a "secure" site, such as a
bank account.

A growing business

As the number of hot spots increases, so does the likelihood of computer
crime.
Shay, 28, knows how easy it is.

He is a former "war driver" -- someone who cruises streets with an
antenna and a wireless computer set up to sniff out wireless access
points in homes and businesses.

"A Pringles can makes a pretty good directional antenna," he said.
The war term is a take-off on the 1980s movie "War Games," in which
computer-savvy teenagers tap into the Defense Department's computer
system.

Shay says he and most war drivers are not malicious; they are just
looking for an access point -- such as your wireless system -- to log on
the Internet for free.

There are also the hobbyists, or scavenger hunters. They drive through a
city to locate and map out hot spots.
Some even practice "war chalking" -- marking with special symbols the
streets, houses and buildings they find to have wireless access so that
others like them can easily locate the WiFi zones, Gorman says.
Who needs security?

Of course, there are people who just don't care about security -- they
don't use the Internet to trade stocks, only to read news, or in Sharon
Carlaine's case, to do graphic design.

Carlaine, 30, was among a few WiFi users at the Flying Star on Central
on a recent weekday afternoon. She said she's been wireless about six
months and has never considered security to be an issue.
"I don't have anything that interesting," she said.

Other WiFi users figure wrongly that security is automatically on when
the computer is on.
Larry Clinton, chief operating officer with the Internet Security
Alliance, based in Washington, D.C., says WiFi consumers should take
some responsibility.

"It's not like you can go out to the store and buy duct tape and now
you're going to be cyber secure," he said, "but you don't have to be a
computer scientist" to protect yourself.

Maybe. Maybe not.

The complexity of security installation depends on the level of
protection sought and the type of computer it's being placed on.
Just ask Larry Plumlee, a 40-year-old UNM student studying management
who has been trying to secure his home system. It has the
vendor-installed WEP technology, but Plumlee wants more protection.
That means more work.

"You have a lot to read to figure out how things work together," he
said.  There may be an instruction manual for software, an instruction
manual for a router, another instruction manual for the wireless card
and even CDs with additional information on how to install high-grade
security.

It's been three months, and "I'm still working on it," he said.

And then Plumlee seemed to wonder if it was all worth it: "I suppose the
$5-per-hour clerk at (a store) is just as likely to steal your credit
card as anyone else."

http://cnniw.yellowbrix.com/pages/cnniw/Story.nsp?story_id=47303774&ID=cnniw&scategory=Telecommunications%3AWireless&

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