Top five Wi-Fi Security Threats

Wi-Fi has become a de-facto standard of communication these days because of its easy accessibility and low infrastructural cost as compared to wired networks. However, it suffers from some security threats because of its open nature.

Let’s have a look at top five security threats.

1. Data interception
2. MAC spoofing
3. Denial of service (DoS)
4. Man-in-the-middle attacks
5. Ad-hoc networks

1.Data interception

If the Wi-Fi networks are not secured properly, it’s pretty easy for eavesdroppers to capture the data. If the data is unencrypted or poorly encrypted, it is quite easy to intercept the data and use it.

2.MAC spoofing

Some networks allow only designated computer to connect to the network using MAC address filtering. There are software available which can identify MAC IDs connecting in a network and pretend to be the same IDs.

3.Denial of service (DoS)

Denial of service means a user does not get requested service. This occurs when an attacker continuously bombards an access point with fake requests, alleged successful and failure messages or some other commands. This is used to capture initial handshaking signals during the recovery of a Wi-Fi network.

4.Man-in-the-middle attacks

These are types of attacks where hacker intercepts between client computer and the access point (AP). Sometimes hacker makes one computer as Soft AP and leads all other computers to log on to this computer. Once this is achieved, hacker connects to real access point and provides smooth traffic to the network. In such cases, it becomes very easy to sniff the traffic. In some other cases, all computers on the network are made to disconnect from the network and asked to connect again using their security key. This event of entering the key is captured using a software and client computers are made to connect to hacker’s soft AP. There are many software available used to automate such attacks.

5.Ad-hoc networks

Ad-hoc networks are sometimes confused with soft AP. Such networks are established when two computers communicate one-to-one without an AP. This is similar to two devices connecting to each other using Bluetooth. Such networks can bridge a secured network to an unsecured network and it becomes easy to push a malware into the secured network.