Your Wireless Enabled Laptop May Be Extremely Vulnerable
Wireless equipped laptops may be extremely vulnerable to wireless networks because, by default they may be configured to automatically connect to common network SSID’s, and assume it is your home network. This may make your computer *very* vulnerable to snooping and attack and may give away your email passwords and other passwords.
How can you protect yourself? First, turn off your laptop’s wireless when not attempting to connect to a known network. Also, make sure your laptop doesn’t turn on its wireless when it can’t find an Ethernet connection. Most important, disable ad hoc networking, by clicking the Advanced button of the Wireless Network Connection Settings control panel to change it from Any available network (access point preferred) to Access point (infrastructure) networks only.
Source: The Wireless Snare By Robert Lemos
March 21st, 2006 at 5:27 PM
Does this include Macs too?
March 22nd, 2006 at 2:25 PM
Good question. I don’t know if that includes Macs. The linked article specifically points out vulnerabilities in how Windows, by default, automatically connects to ad hoc (peer to peer) wireless networks that use common SSIDs (network names). I don’t know if Macs do this automatically, or can be set to do this automatically. But Windows users should follow the advice to disable ad hoc networking.