Consider Your Hotel Network Hostile
As I'm preparing to take my trip to New York for the OWASP AppSec Conference, I came across a timely article on the risks involved with using a hotel network. The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University surveyed 147 hotels and then conducted on-site vulnerability testing at 50 of those hotels. Approximately 20% of those hotels still run basic ethernet hub-type networks and almost 93% offer wireless. Only six of the 39 hotels that had WiFi networks were using encryption (see my blog on why are people still using WEP for why this is necessary). What does this mean for you, Joe User? It means that both your personal and company information is at risk any time you connect to those networks. The next time you're surfing the web, start paying attention to all of the non-SSL links (http:// versus https://) that you visit. Then, think about the information that you are passing along to those sites. Are you signing in with a user name and password? Entering credit card information? Whatever it is, you better make sure that it's something that you wouldn't feel bad if it wound up on a billboard in Times Square, because that's about how risky your trasmission could be.
Before you get too concerned, there are a few things you can do to try to prevent this. First, DO NOT visit any links where you transmit information unencrypted. This is just asking for trouble. Since many man-in-the-middle type attacks can still be used to exploit this, my second suggestion is to use some sort of VPN tunnel. Whether it's a corporate VPN or just a freebie software VPN to your network back home, this allows you to encrypt all traffic over the untrusted hotel network. Make this your standard operating procedure anytime you connect to an untrusted network (not just a hotel) and you should keep your data much safer. Lastly, please be sure to have current firewall and anti-virus software on the computer you are using to connect to the untrusted network. The last thing you want is to get infected by some worm or virus just by plugging in to the network.
One other thing that I think that deserves mentioning here is that if you don't absolutely have to use the internet on an untrusted network, then don't do it. Obviously, there are times when you need access to do work, pay bills, etc, but if you can save those tasks until you reach a more familiar (and hopefully safer) network, that is far and away the best way to keep yourself and your data safe.
Why is anyone still using WEP?
Wireless internet access is everywhere these days. Everyone from restaurants and bars to the average Joe Homeowner has some sort of wifi network set up. The problem is that they set up these networks without giving security a second thought (or even a first thought in most cases). I was at the TRISC conference last month and heard SimpleNomad say that he doesn't pay for internet access anywhere any more because there's always an unsecured or poorly secured wireless network wherever he goes. Lately, I've been testing that and he's absolutely right. I'm the only person on my block not running either an open network or a WEP "protected" network. I was even at a local hospital the other day and their "secure" internal network was using WEP.
For those of you just catching up, WEP is an almost 10 year old wireless protocol whose intent was to encrypt your wireless transmissions. The problem is that WEP uses a user-defined key along with an "initialization vector" (IV) to generate the RC4 traffic key used to encrypt your data. If I can gather enough of these IV's, then I can figure out what the key is and your network is now pwned. I can speed up this process by injecting my own packets and I can get your key in under 3 minutes. How's that for security?
So, why is anyone still using WEP? It was deprecated as a wireless privacy mechanism back in 2004. It is easily cracked and provides slightly more security than running an open wireless network. All that and when you buy a new wireless router it's most likely still pre-configured with WEP enabled. On some of these older models better encryption standards such as WPA or WPA2 aren't even options. With much of the wireless network setup falling into the hands of novice users, some of the responsibility lies with the router manufacturers for even allowing them to use WEP. The rest, in my opinion, is on the users themselves, who put up these networks without being educated enough to do so. You wouldn't put a door on your home without making sure the locks worked, would you? How about buying a car where everyone with that model vehicle had your same key? I think you get the picture.