An interesting development in wireless networking will be announced next week when details of the latest attack on WPA is published, the full story is here.

Wireless has always been problematic, with the ability to read the data or being able to use other people’s broadband becoming more and more easy with downloadable tools.

For instance, if you are still using Windows which is older than XP, then no encryption will work on your system – leaving you open to all the hackers in the local area. Most systems these days come with WEP, but WEP can be broken using a program called Kismac. The instructions are available on YouTube!

WPA was thought to be much better, but there are already programs which can break them available again, with tutorials on YouTube. The difference is that while WEP can be broken through the clever programming, WPA and its stronger version WPA/PSK are broken by brute force.

Brute force is the name for the process where you start at A and try every password, until you get to ZZZZZZZ. Eventually, you will find the right password, however, it may take weeks or months, even with a very fast PC.

The moral of this little story is that security starts with you. If you use an easy password, then your security has been comprimised, regardless of which system you use.

Oh, and don’t think that just because the word you use has a few letters in it that you have better security. The third most popular password in the UK is liverpoolfc – what’s your password?

Originally posted 2008-11-07 10:57:02.