Lex Cyber - Cyber Law Blog

Free WiFi Internet connections are increasingly popular and can be found in hotels, cafes and airports around the world. But it’s not always as good as it seems . Some of today’s ‘free lunches’ come with a serious downside.

When searching for WiFi networks sitting in a cafe or library, you might get a list of available free WiFi networks. It is not necessary that the fake Wifi will always appear on your laptop. But if they do, one thing you will notice for sure is that they are AD-Hoc type networks. What this means is that they are not really WiFi access points but other computers which have been deliberately named ‘Free Public WiFi’ to tempt the users into connecting.

What harm can happen, if you do join such networks ?

There can be many harms. Some of which are:-

•  If the malicious user has internet access , he/she can allow you to get online and then sniff the traffic your computer is sending. This can be your confidential information like your mail account passwords or even sensitive information like your bank account details.
• If the malicious user does not have access to internet, he/she could try to hack your computer by using various network-level exploits.

How to identify such fake WiFi connections.

Look out for details such as :-

•  Enticing name like ‘Free Wifi’ or ‘Free Internet’ being used for the connection instead of the corporation name or identity
•  AD-Hoc type connection being used rather than an access point
• If in doubt, contact the authorities of the place, where you are trying to access internet

How to stay safe?

Some useful tips are :-

• Use a VPN link over any public WiFi internet access link to dial back home
• Try to use  TLS, SSL or encrypted IMAP e-mail connections to read your e-mails
• Beware of fake SSL certificates
• Use a firewall and a Internet Security manager while using internet

If you know of more tips or possible dangers involved in using public WiFi,  please do leave them in comments

1. Install and turn on a firewall. A firewall is a software program or piece of a hardware that prevents unauthorized Internet traffic from entering or leaving your computer. By entering, it means people trying to make a remote connection to your computer and controlling your computer. By leaving, it means malicious softwares sending confidential data using your internet connection without your consent. A properly configured firewall prevents unauthorized users or software to compromise the security of your confidential data. A firewall will block all the applications on your computer from making use of internet connection to sed data without your consent. You can configure the firewall to unblock the applications which are genuine.

Honeynet project performed an experiment to find out the hacking statistics. They took servers and computers “out-of-the-box” , without making any changes to improve or reduce their security. These servers were then connected to the Internet to find out the statistics on how many times they were probed or hacked, and the techniques crackers(unethical hackers) were using.

Based on the tests, the average unprotected Windows computer with the most common security holes will be hacked within 20 minutes. Even secured computers will be probed or scanned for known vulnerabilities dozens times each day. It’s nothing personal, said Honeynet Project founder Lance Spitzner. “The vast majority of attacks on the Net today are launched by people out to break into as many computers as possible,” he said.

Using automated software tools available online, a malicious hacker can set in motion a scan of more than a million computers before he goes to bed at night and have hundreds of systems under his thumb by morning, Spitzner said.

“It’s not so much people not realizing they’re vulnerable than it is they don’t believe they’re a target,” he said. “The fact is, anybody can be a target.”

The reasons attackers would want to break into your machine are many. Computer criminals often use other peoples’ PCs for storing files that would be incriminating if found on their own machines, such as child pornography or lists of stolen credit card numbers. More frequently, criminals hijack computers for financial gain or as a means of attacking others with impunity.

2. Use a good Anti Virus software and update your virus definitions regularly. Perform a complete scan of your computer atleast once a week. View the Antivirus logs and take the necessary actions, if required. Once a virus or worm gets downloaded to your computer, it starts replicating itself. If not identified and quarantined or deleted immediately, it can affect many files on your PC. Also, it can get get transferred to your friends through the mails you send or removable media (like floppy disk, USB stick or external harddrive).If you are skipping antivirus installation just because you do not want to pay for it, you can consider many free available antivirus tools.
3. Keep your computer secure with password protection. It may take only some seconds to install keyword logger or other such malicious softwares on your PC, if left unprotected. Configure your computer to get locked automatically, if left unattended for some time (say 15 minutes). Choose a strong and unique password. Use a combination of alphabets, special characters and numbers. Do not use common keywords like your name or date of birth in the password, which can easily be guessed. Do not share your password with anyone.Do not use your bank account password for any other online accounts. Do not register on suspicious looking website. Usually, it is a standard that a website owner should use a one way encryption key to encrypt your password (One way encryption means that your password can only be encrypted but cannot be decrypted by any means). But some website owners do not follow this. So, do not register on suspicious looking website. If you do register,DO NOT use your bank account or mail account password for registering.
4. Do not access your online bank account from public computers (or cybercafe). You never know how safe these computers are. It may be possible that a keyboard logger or other malware scripts may be installed on these PC’s, which can compromise your bank account security.
   Ask your bank to provide a virtual keyboard for entering the account details. Most of the banks provide this but some do not. A virtual keyboard comes on your computer screen and you enter your details by clicking on the keyboard buttons using the mouse. So, a basic keyboard logger cannot track your account details. Also, it will be better if the buttons on the virtual keyboard keep changing their positions (You have QWERTY layout on the screen keyboard. Then when you click a button, the layout changes to some other random layout like WSDEF ). This will be helpful to dodge malwares or loggers which tracks the position of the mouse click.
5. Update your computer with the latest vendor security patches. These patches are released to plug the known security loopholes in the OS or application. A lot many network intrusions can be prevented by keeping your computers updated with the latest vendor patches, according to the CERT Coordination Center’s Software Engineering Group, a government-funded computer security watchdog group at Carnegie Mellon University.Visit www.uscert.gov for a comprehensive list of security alerts and vendor patches. Using Microsoft’s automatic update notification service, windows users can get updates when they are released. Windows XP users can configure updates to install automatically. Do remember to enable your automatic updates from Microsoft.
6. Take care when opening e-mails. Try not to open e-mails which seems like spam. These e-mails will have luring subject line, like “Win a laptop”, “Win billion of Dollars”, “You have won a lottery” etc.
   Avoid opening e-mail attachments that contain “.vbs”, “.scr”, “.exe”, or “.pif” file extensions. Files that end in these extensions are most likely to contain some sort of virus. Even if the mail is from an acquaintance of yours, do remember to scan it first before opening it. It is very much possible that someone can transfer a virus without even realising that he is doing so.
   Avoid clicking on links given in emails, if you are not sure of the origin of the email. It can take you to website infested with malicious scripts and viruses. Scammers can send you email, asking you to update your bank account. Clicking on the url embedded in the email, can take you to website which will have the same look and feel as your bank website, but it will be a website hosted on the scammers server. Entering information there will compromise your bank account details and security.  It is always recommended and safe to visit the website by typing the url of the website in the browser.
7. People who use file-sharing networks such as Kazaa, rapidshare, eDonkey, and Bittorrent place themselves at a particularly high risk, especially when downloading “executable” programs. These can include “Trojan horse” (which allow the attacker to take control of your computer), viruses, worms or keyboard loggers”Peer-to-Peer” users also should take care to limit the directories they share. Some users who rush through the process for installing programs that run those services end up sharing the contents of their entire hard drive.
8. Avoid visiting websites which hosts cracks or pornographic content. These websites are highly infested with viruses.
9. Avoid installing freeware softwares without finding out their authenticity. It may be possible that the freeware may be a spyware in disguise of a software.
10. Install a anti-spyware software and run it regularly. Spyware and adware can slow your computer to a crawl, sap your Internet connection and snoop on your Web browsing activities. Perform a scan atleast once a week for spywares and delete the file if infested with spyware.
11. Regularly make a backup of your important data. Your data may get corrupted due to virus or spyware, or hardisk bad sectors. Take a backup before it gets too late !