What Are The Risks Of Unsecure Wireless Networks What risks are they at?

[rbeede 0]

Lots of interesting comments. Has anyone actually ever had anything bad happen to them while using an unsecured wireless whether at home or on the road?Any viruses or things like that come up?I'm curious as to how many people have actually been attacked while using a wireless network.

[iGuest 3]

Would you connect to an unsecured networkWhat Are The Risks Of Unsecure Wireless NetworksIt is a pretty scary concept really. Due to my inexperience of such things, I wasn’t sure how widespread this type of hacking behavior was.

I have no gauge on whether this is something that happens to most people when they connect to unsecure wireless networks and that it is something the majority of people don’t risk or if it is something that is likely to occur if they connect to an unsecure network.

A wireless network needs to be properly secured as it poses a number of extremely serious risks and dangers if left wide open and exposed, which many users are unaware of. With the epidemic of unsecured wireless networks being used as platforms, intruders have used unsecured networks to hide their movements, from trafficking child pornography to stealing credit card information according to authorities.

A wireless network is also a direct backdoor into someone’s private network - literally. Instead of intruding from the public side of the gateway device, the intruder connects directly to the network on the private side of the gateway device, completely bypassing any hardware firewall between the private network and the broadband modem. Most people assume that since they are behind a gateway device with a built-in firewall their private network is safe, hence letting down their guard, sharing drives, and being generally careless. The intruder can completely take advantage of this by snooping around undisturbed and getting access to confidential data. This could be in form of personal information such as financial data, tax records, wills, and more that can be abused for identity theft for example, or in form of work-related information such as confidential specs, development information, trade secrets, and more that the victim has brought home from the office. By using spyware an intruder can even look at your email or your user names and passwords because they are usually sent over the internet in clear text. This information can give them unauthorized access to your email accounts or your web servers without your knowledge.

What is even scarier is that it does not take any skill to discover and gain unauthorized access to a wireless networks. By now the danger should be pretty clear. I would not access an unsecured wireless network due to the extremely high risks involved.

-reply by Rainbow Lez

[iGuest 3]

Disadvantages: 

1. Slower internet connection speeds (when multiple users connect to your unsecured network)2. Risk of having your network computers compromised. All files & data are at risk, not just your shared documents. 3. Hackers, mal intended users can read your passwords, bank accounts (whatever else you do on the internet) with the proper tools. 4. Router & modem can be highjacked, forcing you to reset (minor)

[rohitwebmaster 0]

As many people now know, connecting to a public, unsecured wireless network can have serious risks. Itâs known that doing this can provide an opening for all manner of data theft, particularly passwords and private information.
The specifics of why an unsecured connection can be a problem is more obscure, however â as are the methods that can be used to beef up your security even when using an unsecured public hotspot. Letâs have a look at the exact WiFi security risks of public networks, and the solutions available to counter those risks.
Ah! My Airwaves!

security of wifi connections:

The problem of unsecured wireless networks is a part of the way radios work. Unless specifically designed to do so, a radio wonât broadcast in any particular direction. It will send information across the airwaves in all directions.

As a result, anyone nearby can potentially pick up the data sent by a wireless radio, and if that data is unsecured, it can be read. WiFi security works by encrypting the data sent. It can still be picked up, but canât be easily read because of the algorithm used to scramble it.

Most people understand this broad summary of the issue, but itâs actually a bit misleading, because it seems to imply that someone can simply open a notepad, connect to a public network, and watch passwords drop in. In truth, obtaining data even over a public WiFi network requires a certain level of knowledge about software.
but in practice some technical knowledge is usually required to do anything truly malicious.

It is a great technology that offers many benefits. As the saying goes, however, with privilege comes responsibility. A responsibility that is unfortunately much too often ignored by the person implementing it. A wireless network needs to be properly secured as it poses a number of extremely serious risks and dangers if left wide open and exposed, which many users are unaware of.

Why secure a wireless network?

If you are thinking right now that you have nothing important on your network and that you have no need to secure your wireless network, I guarantee you that you will reconsider your opinion after reading the next few paragraphs. Consider the following dangers of having an unsecured wireless network.

Bandwidth Parasite

In a âbestâ case scenario, all the intruder does is use the victimâs broadband connection to get online without paying. Maybe just to surf the web, maybe to download pirated music or software. This does not cause any direct harm to the compromised network, but it can slow down Internet or network access for the victim, the legitimate user of the network, if an intruder leeches off his bandwidth. This could mean substantial additional ISP cost for the victim if the ISP meters used bandwidth and charges for actual usage.

Masking criminal activity

An unauthorized user could abuse the victimâs connection for malicious purposes like hacking, launching a DoS attack, or distributing illegal material. Since the intruder is a part of the private network and sits behind its gateway device, any traffic between him and the Internet will appear to be coming from the public IP address the ISP assigned to the victim. The ISP has no idea how many computers are behind the gateway, who they belong to, and what they are used for. If the criminal activity is discovered and investigated, the origin of the attack will be traced back to the victimâs broadband account. It is a pretty safe bet that nobody wants to be accused of and go to jail for distributing child pornography or hacking into restricted company or government networks (just to mention a few examples) if the crime was in reality committed by a cracker from behind an innocent victimâs network. Reviewing ISPâs Terms of Service usually reveals a clause that not only allows the ISP to reveal customer information to the authorities to assist with legitimate criminal investigations, but also holds the customer responsible for any activities the connection is (ab)used for.

Free access to private data

A wireless network is also a direct backdoor into the victimâs private network â literally. Instead of intruding from the public side of the gateway device, the intruder connects directly to the network on the private side of the gateway device, completely bypassing any hardware firewall between the private network and the broadband modem. Most people assume that since they are behind a gateway device with a built-in firewall their private network is safe, hence letting down their guard, sharing drives, and being generally careless. The intruder can completely take advantage of this by snooping around undisturbed and getting access to confidential data. This could be in form of personal information such as financial data, tax records, wills, and more that can be abused for identity theft for example, or in form of work-related information such as confidential specs, development information, trade secrets, and more that the victim has brought home from the office. By employing a sniffer an intruder can even sniff email or FTP user names and passwords because they are usually transmitted in cleartext, and use that information to gain unauthorized access to email accounts or web servers without the victimâs knowledge.

Backdoor into corporate networks

In addition, a wireless network could also be an indirect backdoor into a corporate network. An intruder can specifically target an employee of a company whose confidential information is valuable to him for monetary or competitive reasons. If that employee establishes a VPN connection either permanently from his gateway or from a machine behind his gateway to the company network, the intruder can then piggyback on the VPN tunnel and gain unauthorized access to company resources, a serious security breach and every network administratorâs nightmare.

Thatâs why

By now the danger should be pretty clear: Unsecured wireless networks are unacceptable due to the extremely high risks involved. Yet there are countless unsecured wireless networks out there. A train ride through the Silicon Valley East Bay area revealed about 60 wireless networks, 40 of them wide open and insecure. A drive around a residential neighborhood covering just a few blocks revealed over 30 wireless networks, 20 of them wide open and insecure.

What is even scarier is that it does not take any skill to discover and gain unauthorized access to wireless networks. One does not have to be a programmer, Linux expert, or network specialist. All it takes is a laptop with a wireless network card, and some software (also available for Windows) that can be easily downloaded for free from the Internet. Armed with these basic tools anybody can drive around, detect open wireless networks, and connect to them. With a Linux machine, additional software, some advanced knowledge, and some time and patience it is even possible to break into wireless networks that use encryption.

Notice from Yordan:

This text is copied, probably the main part from http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and from http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/