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Atlanta (pte059/23.06.2005/17:56) - A wireless expert warns that although using wireless 'hot spots' may be convenient, users are putting their personal data at the risk of being stolen.
Richard Rushing, a wireless expert with the security firm Air Defense http://www.airdefense.net , says: "Understand that the information you're sending is very similar to standing up here in the park and shouting out all the information - would I normally do that?"
Rushing, considered an "ethical hacker", works with companies to improve their wireless networks. Many people don't realize, he said, that all personal data can be stolen while hooked up wirelessly.
"It's great to be able to sit somewhere and work without having any wires attached, no nothing attached, but you have that risk that it comes back to," Rushing said.
In a test run at a park in Atlanta, where one of about 30,000 public US wireless hot spots exist, Rushing very quickly logged onto an unsecured hotel wireless signal, sent an email and then intercepted its entire contents. This was also possible with any of the people who were using the wireless connection in his immediate vicinity.
"At any point in time, I can reach out and touch everyone's laptop at the hot spot, and there's usually not any way of preventing that - from me touching and looking at other people's stuff at the hot spot itself," Rushing said.
Such things as 'evil twins' also exist, says the expert. A hacker can set up a wireless signal, inviting a user to log on, and as soon as this happens, the hacker has complete access to the machine.
Although he doesn't discourage wireless usage, Rushing simply says that whilst doing so, one shouldn't access or send anything one wouldn't want anyone else to read.
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