In a recent press event in San Francisco my colleague Craig Schmugar revisited our predictions for the Top 10 security trends of 2007. Among other remarks he said that online criminals are looking for new areas to exploit–such as municipal Wi-Fi–but added we haven’t heard of any real-world attacks.

Meanwhile security professional Dave Whitelegg in his blog writes about the possible appearance of Wi-Fi botnets in the near future.

Looks like Whitelegg hit the target: If you are travelling in France and envisage connecting your computer to some available wireless networks, you might be surprised. Last week in Paris’ Gare du Nord (the Eurostar train station), we saw some unexpected hotspot names.

I found this screenshot on two French blogs (here and here). You don’t need to speak French to notice a few curious names. Undoubtedly the hotspots were hacked and renamed.

Given these particular names, it’s hard to imagine a professional phishing or “man-in-the-middle” attack. We seem to have just childish behaviour. One inquisitive investigator (nicknamed Redeye) searched the origin of this phenomenon. He found a vulnerable SNCF router. (SNCF is the French National Railway Company.) According to his inquiry, the router was just badly configured:

  • Opened ports :
    • 22 (ssh with default login and password: root/admin)
    • 53
    • 80
    • 443
    • 448
    • 8080
    • 8081
    • 8082
  • A nmap log indicated the MAC address.

This setup was so insecure that it was possible to access the admin router page!

I also have heard rumours of fake free Wi-Fi access appearing here and there. People would be prompted to use these lure networks; then they would be trapped and their data stolen.

Is this phishing or botnet? Fun or fraud? I don’t know, but in the near future, wireless networks will be a new target. Today young hackers are playing with this; tomorrow cybercriminals will take over from them. We must be vigilant: Check and double-check if we are normally connected to an accurate Access Point instead of to any one-to-one or ad-hoc mode. I also recommend that you systematically use a VPN (virtual private network) client to create a secure tunnel between you and Internet.