Public Wi-Fi hotspots in airports can be a lifesaver for many
business travelers, but a new study released this week suggests
that road warriors could be vulnerable to hack attacks if they
aren't careful about which networks they connect to while
waiting for their flight. Jason Hiner, executive editor at CNET
News.com's sister site TechRepublic, wrote a blog on Wednesday
about the new study published by a company called AirTight at
the Gartner Mobile and Wireless Summit in Chicago on Monday.
AirTight Networks, which sells wireless-intrusion-prevention
software, conducted its study in 11 U.S. airports and three
airports in the Asia-Pacific region between January 30 and
February 8 using standard Wi-Fi cards and packet tracing
software. The company found that hackers can gain access to
information on a laptop hard drive by setting up fake ad-hoc or
peer-to-peer Wi-Fi networks in airports. The SSID (service set
identifier), which is used to identify nearby wireless networks,
appears as an icon with two laptops co