Wi-Fi connections: The new messenger of terror

The series of blasts have rocked the country of late. Let us analyse the series of threatening e-mails sent to media houses, including both print and electronic, soon after each of these blasts.
In Ahmedabad blasts, the mail was sent from a local wireless router, by cracking the id and password of that router.

Similar was the case during the Delhi blasts, where the WEP was cracked and then the wireless router was used against the knowledge and will of the users registered.

Coming to the recent blasts taking place in Varanasi, again the e-mail was traced to Bombay and was allegedly sent by infamous terrorists group "Indian Mujahideen."

This mail was again traced to a wireless router which was cracked just hours ago before the mail was sent. The media people who received this mail were not quick enough to act upon it and could have traced quickly to prevent the attack.

The point of agenda today is that, we will be discussing the threats dealing with the vulnerabilities existing in wireless routers used.

These terrorist or many other such hactivists crack this router, use them to connect and send untraceable threats as well as some phishing activities, so that it can be easily blamed on the user registered at the router and not the actual hacker for sending such spams.

In Mumbai blast attacks, the terror mail was sent by hacking into the router by using a mobile phone. The technique is very simple and lucid and can be carried out by any person with the basic knowledge of wireless internet transactions.

The following key points should be kept in mind for all the wireless users to secure them from such attacks:

>    One should encrypt their id and password with some different numbers or keywords, except their birthdates or mobile numbers, which can be easily guessed by the attackers.

>    While registering their router during installation, they should change the default id and password of the admin the moment the router is installed, to avoid being cracked.

>    Instead of using a WEP encryption system to secure the network, one should rather use a WPA encryption scheme, which cannot be hijacked as WEP remains vulnerable.

>    Government should introduce a MAC locking scheme on each wireless router, so that the router only gets attached with the MAC registered on it, and if anyone else tries to connect through it, it won't happen and the person can be caught under cyber laws.