Wily attackers seek wireless networks in Perth, Western Australia for easy targets

Four rounds of passive wireless packet sniffing were conducted in Perth, Western Australia over two years to determine the nature of wireless network activity occurring in the area and to identify the basic security weaknesses. Trends in the gathered information are discussed in this paper with focus on the application of the Wired Equivalent Privacy and masking of the network name, which are the only security weaknesses detectable by the passive packet sniffer used. The results show that while the detected wireless uptake is growing, mitigation of these basic security weaknesses are declining. Although these results do not conclude on the level of security used in the detected wireless networks, this research highlights the proliferation of opportunities for wily attackers to compromise exposed corporate networks.