Wireless technologies have spread quickly in recent years and are now widely deployed in corporate environments as well as at home. The human dependency on those technologies has increased to the point where one can find wireless devices almost everywhere, from network devices to laptops, cameras, and so on.

Though these devices support standard security options and protocols useful to thwart common attacks (ciphering, authentication, etc), many kinds of attacks are still possible but are dependant on the real level of security present and the skill of the attacker.

Sometimes, even in companies, blackhat people find open networks with poor or no security in place. Then they can deeply penetrate such easy targets to steal information or bounce anonymously elsewhere over the Internet. These threats come through the external physical barriers (from a parking lot, walking down the street, through windows) or inside your own environment (via zealous network seekers with PDAs or laptops, wireless cards and scanning software).

By Laurent Oudot at SecurityFocus.

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