Five ways to protect yourself from Wi-Fi honeypots

Posted by CONSULTAPRO on 03/11/12




1. Turn off Wi-Fi

If Wi-Fi isn't enabled, there's no privacy or security risk. Use a 3G or 4G USB stick instead. Or, on a laptop with a wired Ethernet connection, use that.

2. Avoid open Wi-Fi networks

"For the most part I tell people: avoid open Wi-Fi altogether," Kitchen says. If you do use Wi-Fi, stick to networks that are WPA-encrypted with a password. The WiFi Pineapple Mark IV can't impersonate those.

3. Use a VPN

If you do decide to connect to an open network, use a VPN or SSH tunnel to give yourself additional security. But even then, an attacker can interfere with the Wi-Fi connection by sending a false deauthentication frame. "It looks like it came from the legit Wi-Fi network," Kitchen says. "I could piss you off and maybe you'd go unencrypted" by disabling the VPN and making the connection vulnerable.

4. Change your Wi-Fi settings

If your Wi-Fi settings are changed so your computer (or phone) no longer remembers previous open networks it connected to, that will help. It will also protect your privacy because the names of stored networks will no longer be broadcast. On a Mac under OS X, for instance, go to network settings, and under advanced, turn off "Remember networks this computer has joined." Also erase the list of "Preferred networks."

5. Ask your manufacturer to fix the problem

Should your phone really trust that an airplane-based Wi-Fi network is legitimate when it shows up at a conference or hotel? Probably not. Adding security through geolocation or making sure the MAC addresses are the same are some options that manufacturers could choose. But there's been little movement toward an industrywide fix.

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