Security Report Looks at Wireless

According to a recent research report commissioned by RSA Security, the number of wireless networks in some of the world's major financial centres continues to rise at an explosive rate.

The largest year-on-year rise was discovered in London, where there are 57% more wireless network access points today than in 2005. The percentage increase in New York was an impressive 20%. In Paris, the increase from 2004 to 2006 was 119%. It comes as no surprise that encryption of wireless networks is also on the increase:

• London WEP usage rose from 65% in 2005 to 74% in 2006
  
• New York WEP usage rose from 62% in 2005 to 75% in 2006
  
• Paris has the highest levels of encryption at 78%, an increase on 2004's figure of 69%

That's the good news. On the flip side:

• London has 26% of its business networks unsecured
• New York has 25%
• Parisians has 22% of its business networks unsecured

In terms of the number of wireless networks configured according to default network settings, making it easier for intruders to find ways to penetrate networks:

• London has 22% of access points still had default settings
  
• New York has 28% of access points using default settings
  
• Paris has 21% of access points still having default settings

The number of wireless hotspots continues to rise in some of the world's major financial districts. Last year's research detected 210 wireless hotspots on the London route; by 2006 this figure had risen to 364--a year on year increase of 73%. In New York, the annual growth rate was 15%, and almost 20% of all wireless access points were found to be hotspots. In Paris, only 68 wireless hotspots, equalling 12% of all access points, were discovered.

Although the purpose of the research was not to look for rogue hotspots--temporary wireless access points designed to look like the genuine article to capture users' confidential information--they do present a potential security issue to which business and consumers should be alert. For example, Capgemini UK has built a test system on a laptop which emulates a commonly seen hotspot. In its own private tests the company has observed devices connecting to this sample rogue hotspot, presumably because they have been unable to distinguish it from the real thing.

Posted by Jon Erickson at 03:22 PM  Permalink