Security boffins warn of Wi-Fi hack

INSECURITY EXPERTS have worked out a way of taking control of a laptop by taking advantage of bad coding in a system's wi-fi device driver.

David Maynor, a research engineer with Internet Security Systems and Jon Ellch, a student at the US Naval postgraduate school in Monterey, California said that the hack is technologically hard work. However it is the sort of challenge that hackers like.

Basically you use an open-source 802.11 hacking tool called LORCON which "fuzzes" or chucks large number of wireless packets at different wireless cards until the security falls over.

Maynor and Ellch found several wireless device driver flaws, including one that allowed them to take over a laptop.

The pair say that the hack is the network equivalent of a drive by shooting. The hacker could sit in a public space and waiting for the right type of machine to come into range. The victim would not need to be connected for the attack to work.

More here. µ