German hacker finds open Wi-Fi networks in Manila


DRIVING through the central business district of Makati all the way to Malate in Manila, a German whitehat hacker discovered that only 15 of the 66 wireless access points or wireless local area networks located in these two areas were “encrypted.”
“The encyrption levels of these access points were not even secure,” said the German whitehat hacker known as Van Hauser.

Van Hauser was in Manila as one of the experts invited to the third annual Philippine Information Technology Security Conference.

Demonstrating the lack of security in the wireless local area networks (WLAN) of corporate firms in the Philippines, Van Hauser disclosed that the “wardriving” he conducted from Makati to Malate easily identified WLANs open to anyone armed with a laptop and software to detect wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi) hotspots.

Wardriving is the process of scanning for wireless access points while driving by certain areas known to have such WLANs, said Van Hauser.

In his wardriving exercise, Van Hauser was able to detect the “open” WLANs of prominent firms located in Makati. He, however, declined to name these companies.

“Wardriving is not hacking. I was just scanning for access points in a certain area,” he stressed.

Wardriving, however, is now being used by malicious hackers to locate public access points to launch attacks.
 

By Erwin Lemuel Oliva
INQ7.net
http://news.inq7.net/common/related.php?site=30&story_id=10201