Wireless Networks in Big Trouble

Wireless networks are a little less secure today with the public release of "AirSnort," a tool that can surreptitiously grab and analyze data moving across just about every major wireless network. When enough information has been captured, AirSnort can then piece together the system's master password. In other words, hackers and/or eavesdroppers using AirSnort can just grab what they want from a company's database wirelessly, out of thin air. AirSnort's abilities aren't groundbreaking -– security experts know all too well that wireless networks can be easily accessed and monitored by outsiders. But a fully featured tool to facilitate password-grabs wasn't readily available until this past weekend, when AirSnort was released on the Internet. Wireless networks transmit information over public airwaves, the same medium used by television, radio and cell phones. The networks are supposed to be protected by a built-in security feature, the Wired Equivalent Privacy system (WEP) -- also known as the 802.11b standard -- which encrypts data as it is transmitted. But WEP/802.11b has proved to be quite crackable. And that's exactly why AirSnort was publicly released, said AirSnort programmers Jeremy Bruestle and Blake Hegerle. They hope that AirSnort will prove once and for all that wireless networks protected only by WEP are not secure.