Friends as I have already announced
before that we would be writing on
Wifi attacks very soon, The series
consists of three parts( May be more
depending upon your feedback) and
will be covered by John Jeffrey. In
the first Part John explains about the
very basics of Wifi Attacks and
security. Before moving on to the
advanced stuff such as WEP and WPA
Cracking, You need to have the basic
idea of how a wifi connection works.
Wifi stands for Wireless Fidelity, Its a
device that performs the functions of
a router but also includes the
functions of a wireless access point
and a network switch.
They are commonly used to allow
access to the Internet or a computer
networks without the need for a
cabled connection. Wifi is commonly
used in airports , Offices etc
How Wifi Works?
The working of Wifi is pretty simple
to understand. The components of
wireless network includes a
communication device such as a
laptop or a cell pone etc, a router
and internet connection
The communication device which
has a wireless compatibility
( laptops )converts the data in the
form of radio waves and transmits it
to the router, through an antenna.
The router receives the signal and
decodes it. The router sends the
information to the Internet using a
physical, wired Ethernet connection.
The reverse communication follows
the same ( i.e) the router receiving
information from the Internet,
translating it into a radio signals and
sending it to the computer's wireless
adapter.
Whats the Danger?Security is an
important part of a home wireless
network. If you set your router to
create an open hotspot, anyone who
has a wireless card will be able to
use your signal. And he/she will be
able to use your internet
connection .
To protect and keep our internet
private we can use one the following
encryptions
WEPWired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)
is a weak security algorithm for
wireless networks. Its intention was
to provide data confidentiality
comparable to that of a traditional
wired network. WEP, recognizable by
the key of 10 or 26 hexadecimal
digits, Its widely in use and is often
the first security choice presented to
users by router configuration tools.
Although its name implies that it is
as secure as a wired connection, WEP
has been demonstrated to have
numerous flaws and has been
deprecated in favor of newer
standards such as WPA2.
WPA And WPA 2WPA (Wi-Fi
Protected Access) and WPA2 (Wi-Fi
Protected Access II ) are two security
protocols for wireless networks from
the Wi-Fi Alliance that was
developed to provide a migration
from WEP.
The Alliance defined these in
response to serious weaknesses
researchers had found in the
previous system, WEP
But these encryptions can also be
broken , The following demo shows
us how easy it is to crack WEP , WPA
keys
DemonstrationIn this following
demonstration Brain Young shows
us how easy it is to crack WEP , WPA
keys
How to Secure Your Wireless
Network
1. Never use WEP as your encryption
type, always use WPA Or WPA 2 as
your encryption type
2.Use strong passwords , which can
not be cracked easily by using a
dictionary attack or brute force
attack
3. Always Use a Vpn when your
using pubic Wifi hotspots
Hope this Information Helps You ,
For further doubts and clarifications
please pass your comments
You Might Also Like:
Wireless Network Security Basics
kashmir
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
WikiLeaks files revealed that the Australian government quietly tried to undermine a proposed ban on cluster bombs [EPA]WikiLeaks' obvious truth People must seek to protect not only WikiLeaks, but also the mechanism by which the information enters into our purview.WikiLeaks files revealed that the Australian government quietly tried to undermine a proposed ban on cluster bombs [EPA]WikiLeaks' obvious truth People must seek to protect not only WikiLeaks, but also the mechanism by which the information enters into our purview.
here is the violence you see, and
then there is the violence you don't.
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek captures
this point expertly in his monograph
Violence: Six Sideways Reflections,
when he opens with the well-known
story about an employee suspected
of stealing from his workplace:
"Every evening, as he leaves the
factory, the wheelbarrow he pushes
in front of him is carefully inspected.
The guards find nothing; it is always
empty. Finally, the penny drops:
what the worker is stealing are the
wheelbarrows themselves. The
guards were simply blinded to the
obvious truth."
In cataloguing world politics, news
media has a tendency to focus our
attention on the highly visible acts of
violent conflict and environmental
degradation, or what Zizek calls
"subjective" violence. This myopic
view, he reasons, disables us from
seeing two other, more pervasive
and "objective" forms of violence:
the "symbolic" violence of language
(e.g. our choice and assembly of
words) and the "systemic" violence
of our economic and political
systems (e.g. the transboundary
harm to small island communities
caused by economic activity in far-
off places).
Simply put, physical injury is only
one form of violence; other forms
exist invisibly in the functioning of
language and power that to a large
extent determine how societies
interrelate. Nowhere is this power
more far-reaching, relatively
unchallenged, and relied upon than
in world news media.
Fairfax's wheelbarrow
For the second time this year,
incidents involving the Australian
press have directed our attention
towards the harm caused by the
routine operation of the media. First,
in what has now been widely
reported, various employees of
News Corporation have been
accused of improperly accessing the
telecommunications services of
targeted individuals in order to
publish more detailed and
revelatory stories about a kidnapped
girl - a simple yet utterly deplorable
case of trying to manufacture an
exclusive scoop.
The second and more recent
revelation has consequences that are
equally significant, but is not so well
known.
Beginning in December 2010, a little-
known Australian journalist Dr Philip
Dorling began authoring what he
hassubsequently referred to as "a
large number of front-page stories
that have shed new light" on
Australia's foreign relations. Each of
the stories, with topics ranging from
the content of US embassy cables to
previously confidential Australian
policy positions, has been based on
"exclusive" access to WikiLeaks
source documents, and published by
Fairfax, one of Australia's largest
newspaper companies.
Despite requests, and is standard
practice elsewhere, neither Fairfax
nor Dr Dorling made the WikiLeaks
material publicly available.
Of particular importance were
reports that since at least 2006,
Australia had - under the previous
Labour government - worked behind
the scenes with the governments of
Britain, Canada and Japan, as well as
with certain Asian and African states,
to ensure that the final text of the
international convention banning
cluster munitions would not
preclude Australian forces jointly
operating alongside states who are
not party to the treaty, and who are
therefore permitted to deploy cluster
bombs. In essence, Australia took a
pro-active public role in promoting
the humanitarian need for a treaty
banning cluster munitions in all their
respects, and quietly went about
undermining what was actually
precluded by the convention.
However, Dr Dorling and Fairfax did
not break their "exclusive" cluster
munitions story until May 2011.
By this time, the final consultation
period before Australia ratified its
highly-criticised interpretation of its
treaty obligations into domestic law
had ended. And with it, a further
seven months of lobbying by various
interest groups advocating for and
against Australia's draft legislation
had passed. Indeed, all indications
since around February were that the
Senate would vote on the bill within
weeks, until that decision was
pushed back to March, April, then
further still to May, June and July.
Indeed, it is only by pure chance that
the Senate has still yet to vote on
whether to pass the bill without
amendment, effectively ending
years of lobbying both here and
overseas.
The months since November 2010,
when Dr Dorling first took possession
of the WikiLeaks material, have
therefore been a unique and critical
time for all interest groups to be
across the finer details of the source
documents. It was, after all,
information intended by WikiLeaks
to be freely accessible in the public
domain - not for the exclusive use of
Dr Dorling and Fairfax.
The obvious truth
It was not until 29 August and
subsequently, however, that ABC's
Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes
was able to publicise details of how
Dr Philip Dorling, acting as a
freelancer, came to acquire exclusive
"sole custody" of the WikiLeaks
cables in November 2010. As a result
of Holmes' investigation, it also
became clear that seniorFairfax
editors had, under pressure since
December 2010 (for example, here
and here), argued that to retain
exclusive access to the WikiLeaks
material enabled Fairfax time to
continue "mining the source
documents", because "to put the
material online would be to give
access to our competitors in the local
market". Holmes rightly summed up
these tensions within Fairfax thus:
"It's in the public interest - including
that of future victims of these nasty
weapons - for the cables to be
posted. It's in Fairfax's commercial
interest to keep them under wraps".
More recently, by this stage learning
that an investigative story Holmes
into the whole affair was due to be
aired on national television,
journalistDr Dorling conceded that
since he produced the first WikiLeaks
scoop for Fairfax in December 2010,
in fact numerous parties had
requested access to the source
documents, including "non-
government organisations,
members of Federal Parliament, one
commercial enterprise, and two
foreign embassies".
In the same memo, Dr Dorling goes
on to acknowledge that he was fully
aware that at the same time, the
international treaty discussed in
many of the WikiLeaks documents
was to be immanently ratified into
domestic law. Curiously, Dr Dorling
reasons that he denied access to the
WikiLeaks cables to all of the
requesting parties because, in his
words:
"Since I am a journalist and not a
partisan for any particular cause, I
took the view that it would be
inappropriate for me to meet any of
these requests, no matter how
forcefully the demands for access
were made or my own views about
the merits or otherwise of their
particular political campaign or
other interests".
then there is the violence you don't.
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek captures
this point expertly in his monograph
Violence: Six Sideways Reflections,
when he opens with the well-known
story about an employee suspected
of stealing from his workplace:
"Every evening, as he leaves the
factory, the wheelbarrow he pushes
in front of him is carefully inspected.
The guards find nothing; it is always
empty. Finally, the penny drops:
what the worker is stealing are the
wheelbarrows themselves. The
guards were simply blinded to the
obvious truth."
In cataloguing world politics, news
media has a tendency to focus our
attention on the highly visible acts of
violent conflict and environmental
degradation, or what Zizek calls
"subjective" violence. This myopic
view, he reasons, disables us from
seeing two other, more pervasive
and "objective" forms of violence:
the "symbolic" violence of language
(e.g. our choice and assembly of
words) and the "systemic" violence
of our economic and political
systems (e.g. the transboundary
harm to small island communities
caused by economic activity in far-
off places).
Simply put, physical injury is only
one form of violence; other forms
exist invisibly in the functioning of
language and power that to a large
extent determine how societies
interrelate. Nowhere is this power
more far-reaching, relatively
unchallenged, and relied upon than
in world news media.
Fairfax's wheelbarrow
For the second time this year,
incidents involving the Australian
press have directed our attention
towards the harm caused by the
routine operation of the media. First,
in what has now been widely
reported, various employees of
News Corporation have been
accused of improperly accessing the
telecommunications services of
targeted individuals in order to
publish more detailed and
revelatory stories about a kidnapped
girl - a simple yet utterly deplorable
case of trying to manufacture an
exclusive scoop.
The second and more recent
revelation has consequences that are
equally significant, but is not so well
known.
Beginning in December 2010, a little-
known Australian journalist Dr Philip
Dorling began authoring what he
hassubsequently referred to as "a
large number of front-page stories
that have shed new light" on
Australia's foreign relations. Each of
the stories, with topics ranging from
the content of US embassy cables to
previously confidential Australian
policy positions, has been based on
"exclusive" access to WikiLeaks
source documents, and published by
Fairfax, one of Australia's largest
newspaper companies.
Despite requests, and is standard
practice elsewhere, neither Fairfax
nor Dr Dorling made the WikiLeaks
material publicly available.
Of particular importance were
reports that since at least 2006,
Australia had - under the previous
Labour government - worked behind
the scenes with the governments of
Britain, Canada and Japan, as well as
with certain Asian and African states,
to ensure that the final text of the
international convention banning
cluster munitions would not
preclude Australian forces jointly
operating alongside states who are
not party to the treaty, and who are
therefore permitted to deploy cluster
bombs. In essence, Australia took a
pro-active public role in promoting
the humanitarian need for a treaty
banning cluster munitions in all their
respects, and quietly went about
undermining what was actually
precluded by the convention.
However, Dr Dorling and Fairfax did
not break their "exclusive" cluster
munitions story until May 2011.
By this time, the final consultation
period before Australia ratified its
highly-criticised interpretation of its
treaty obligations into domestic law
had ended. And with it, a further
seven months of lobbying by various
interest groups advocating for and
against Australia's draft legislation
had passed. Indeed, all indications
since around February were that the
Senate would vote on the bill within
weeks, until that decision was
pushed back to March, April, then
further still to May, June and July.
Indeed, it is only by pure chance that
the Senate has still yet to vote on
whether to pass the bill without
amendment, effectively ending
years of lobbying both here and
overseas.
The months since November 2010,
when Dr Dorling first took possession
of the WikiLeaks material, have
therefore been a unique and critical
time for all interest groups to be
across the finer details of the source
documents. It was, after all,
information intended by WikiLeaks
to be freely accessible in the public
domain - not for the exclusive use of
Dr Dorling and Fairfax.
The obvious truth
It was not until 29 August and
subsequently, however, that ABC's
Media Watch host Jonathan Holmes
was able to publicise details of how
Dr Philip Dorling, acting as a
freelancer, came to acquire exclusive
"sole custody" of the WikiLeaks
cables in November 2010. As a result
of Holmes' investigation, it also
became clear that seniorFairfax
editors had, under pressure since
December 2010 (for example, here
and here), argued that to retain
exclusive access to the WikiLeaks
material enabled Fairfax time to
continue "mining the source
documents", because "to put the
material online would be to give
access to our competitors in the local
market". Holmes rightly summed up
these tensions within Fairfax thus:
"It's in the public interest - including
that of future victims of these nasty
weapons - for the cables to be
posted. It's in Fairfax's commercial
interest to keep them under wraps".
More recently, by this stage learning
that an investigative story Holmes
into the whole affair was due to be
aired on national television,
journalistDr Dorling conceded that
since he produced the first WikiLeaks
scoop for Fairfax in December 2010,
in fact numerous parties had
requested access to the source
documents, including "non-
government organisations,
members of Federal Parliament, one
commercial enterprise, and two
foreign embassies".
In the same memo, Dr Dorling goes
on to acknowledge that he was fully
aware that at the same time, the
international treaty discussed in
many of the WikiLeaks documents
was to be immanently ratified into
domestic law. Curiously, Dr Dorling
reasons that he denied access to the
WikiLeaks cables to all of the
requesting parties because, in his
words:
"Since I am a journalist and not a
partisan for any particular cause, I
took the view that it would be
inappropriate for me to meet any of
these requests, no matter how
forcefully the demands for access
were made or my own views about
the merits or otherwise of their
particular political campaign or
other interests".
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Turkish hackers strike websites with DNS hackWebsites belonging to major companies were redirected to adefacement page via DNS record tampering
September 5, 2011 08:12 AM ET
IDG News Service - A Turkish hacking group managed to tamper
with Internet addressing records over the weekend, redirecting
dozens of websites belonging to companies including Microsoft,
UPS and Vodafone to a different web pages controlled by the
hackers.
According to Zone-H, a website that tracks defacements, 186
websites were redirected to a page controlled by
"Turkguvenligi." A message on the redirect page read: "4 Sept.
We Turkguvenligi declare this day as World Hackers Day - Have
fun ;) h4ck y0u."
All of the websites were registered through NetNames, which is
part of NBT group. NetNames provides DNS (Domain Name
System) services for the websites, which is the system used to
translates a domain name into an IP address that can be called
into a webbrowser.
Turkguvenligi managed to hack NetName's DNS servers through
a SQL injection attack, which involves putting commands into a
web-based form to see if the back-end database responds. If
those commands aren't scanned for malicious code, an attacker
could gain access to the system.
In the case of NetNames, Turkguvenligi put a redelegation order
into the company's system and changed the address of the
master DNS servers that served data for the websites, according
to a statement from NetNames. The attack occurred around 9
p.m. BST on Sunday.
"The rogue name server then served incorrect DNS data to
redirect legitimate web traffic intended for customer web sites
through to a hacker holding page branded Turkguvenligi," the
statement read. "The illegal changes were reversed quickly to
bring service back to the customers impacted and the accounts
concerned have been disabled to block any further access to the
systems."
The hack accomplished by Turkguvenligi is a powerful one.
Although it appears the goal of the group was just to vandalize
the sites for a while, the group could have set up lookalike sites
for the real ones, tricking users into thinking they were on the
legitimate site and possibly stealing logins and passwords.
Two of HSBC's banking sites -- one with a country-code Top Level
Domain in South Korea and one in Canada -- were targeted,
according to the list compiled by Zone-H.
Other websites affected were those belonging to The Telegraph
newspaper, The Register technology news site, Coca-Cola,
Interpol, Adobe,Dell, several Microsoft country sites, Peugeot,
Harvard University and the security companies F-Secure,
BitDefender and Secunia. The website for Gary McKinnon, the so-
called NASA hacker who is appealing extradition to the U.S. on
hacking charges, was also hit.
The Register wrote that its website was not breached and that
service was restored about three hours after the attack.
"As far as we can tell there was no attempt to penetrate our
systems,"wrote Drew Cullen . "But we shut down access/services
- in other words, anything that requires a password - as a
precaution."NSSEC, a security measure now being deployed by many
registrars to guard against DNS tampering may not have
prevented this kind of attack, said Paul Mutton , a security analyst
with Netcraft.
DNSSEC uses public key cryptography to digitally "sign" the DNS
records for websites. It is designed to stop attacks such as cache
poisoning, where a DNS server is hacked, making it possible for a
user to type in the correct website name but be directed to a
fake website.
"If the attacker was able to change the DNS settings held by the
domain registrar, presumably they could also have changed
other settings, such as disabling DNSSEC, or rather, simply
change the DNS settings to point to nameservers that do not
support DNSSEC."
NetNames described the attacks against its systems as being
"sustained and concentrated." "We will continue to review our
systems to ensure that we provide our customers a solid, robust
and above all secure service," it said.
IDG News Service - A Turkish hacking group managed to tamper
with Internet addressing records over the weekend, redirecting
dozens of websites belonging to companies including Microsoft,
UPS and Vodafone to a different web pages controlled by the
hackers.
According to Zone-H, a website that tracks defacements, 186
websites were redirected to a page controlled by
"Turkguvenligi." A message on the redirect page read: "4 Sept.
We Turkguvenligi declare this day as World Hackers Day - Have
fun ;) h4ck y0u."
All of the websites were registered through NetNames, which is
part of NBT group. NetNames provides DNS (Domain Name
System) services for the websites, which is the system used to
translates a domain name into an IP address that can be called
into a webbrowser.
Turkguvenligi managed to hack NetName's DNS servers through
a SQL injection attack, which involves putting commands into a
web-based form to see if the back-end database responds. If
those commands aren't scanned for malicious code, an attacker
could gain access to the system.
In the case of NetNames, Turkguvenligi put a redelegation order
into the company's system and changed the address of the
master DNS servers that served data for the websites, according
to a statement from NetNames. The attack occurred around 9
p.m. BST on Sunday.
"The rogue name server then served incorrect DNS data to
redirect legitimate web traffic intended for customer web sites
through to a hacker holding page branded Turkguvenligi," the
statement read. "The illegal changes were reversed quickly to
bring service back to the customers impacted and the accounts
concerned have been disabled to block any further access to the
systems."
The hack accomplished by Turkguvenligi is a powerful one.
Although it appears the goal of the group was just to vandalize
the sites for a while, the group could have set up lookalike sites
for the real ones, tricking users into thinking they were on the
legitimate site and possibly stealing logins and passwords.
Two of HSBC's banking sites -- one with a country-code Top Level
Domain in South Korea and one in Canada -- were targeted,
according to the list compiled by Zone-H.
Other websites affected were those belonging to The Telegraph
newspaper, The Register technology news site, Coca-Cola,
Interpol, Adobe,Dell, several Microsoft country sites, Peugeot,
Harvard University and the security companies F-Secure,
BitDefender and Secunia. The website for Gary McKinnon, the so-
called NASA hacker who is appealing extradition to the U.S. on
hacking charges, was also hit.
The Register wrote that its website was not breached and that
service was restored about three hours after the attack.
"As far as we can tell there was no attempt to penetrate our
systems,"wrote Drew Cullen . "But we shut down access/services
- in other words, anything that requires a password - as a
precaution."NSSEC, a security measure now being deployed by many
registrars to guard against DNS tampering may not have
prevented this kind of attack, said Paul Mutton , a security analyst
with Netcraft.
DNSSEC uses public key cryptography to digitally "sign" the DNS
records for websites. It is designed to stop attacks such as cache
poisoning, where a DNS server is hacked, making it possible for a
user to type in the correct website name but be directed to a
fake website.
"If the attacker was able to change the DNS settings held by the
domain registrar, presumably they could also have changed
other settings, such as disabling DNSSEC, or rather, simply
change the DNS settings to point to nameservers that do not
support DNSSEC."
NetNames described the attacks against its systems as being
"sustained and concentrated." "We will continue to review our
systems to ensure that we provide our customers a solid, robust
and above all secure service," it said.
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