April 13, 2005
WEP Is Weeping
Own a Wireless network? Ever wonder where all your database files went from your hard drive last week? Maybe several FBI agents deleted them just because they could. In a recent ISSA meeting in Los Angeles, CA a team of FBI agents displayed how simple it was to compromise a WEP encryption on a wireless network. While it is not a unknown fact that such a thing can be done, it was the fact that it only took three minutes to get the job done that was surprising.
For those of you not familiar with the WEP technology, it is an encryption scheme used on 802.11a, b and g wireless units which uses a key to scramble packets so that third parties cannot simply snatch them. When the data reaches its destination, a computer with the same key can them unscramble the information and make sense of it. Unfortunately any WEP encryption rating is decreased by 24 bits due to an Initialization Vector at the head of the packet. Before last year, in order to gain access to a wireless network would take days due to the amount of packets needed to use Aircrack, a WEP cracking program, affectively. The technique has now been perfected and leaves everyone with wireless networks at risk.
What does this have to do with VoIP you ask? Well, in order for VoIP to hit the big times, true wireless connectivity is necessary. I recommend the "Look Ma, No Wires" article to learn more about this. With VoIP already being insecure on various levels, taking it off hard lines and into the air would be mere suicide. Why not just increase the encryption rating then? Unfortunately when you enlarge the size of the encryption then there are more packets streaming. Wireless would not be able to support streaming voice and enlarged packets at the same time due to its small bandwidth. According to Tom's Networking:
Millions of wireless access points are spread across the US and the world. About 70% percent of these access points are unprotected — wide open to access by anyone who happens to drive by. The other 30% are protected by WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) and a small handful are protected by the new WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) standard.
Read more at: FBI Teaches Lesson In How To Break Into Wi-Fi Networks
--
Did you enjoy this post?
« Hide The Women & Childern! Hackers Are Coming | Main | VoIP Regulations Goes Up In Flames »
