War XingĪround 2000 an engineer by the name of Peter Shipley decided to map out insecure WiFi endpoints.
When you fire up your WiFi connection on your phone while being out, you will probably see examples popup like “ John’s iPhone” or the default “ AndroidAP“. When we start a hotspot on our phone for other devices to use the same internet connection, we call that “tethering”.
And even though someone who connects to a WiFi hotspot doesn’t usually see that address, it is of utmost importance for your connection. Like the SSID is used to identify itself to an end-user, the MAC address or BSSID is used by the hardware for things like routing in the rest of the network. A MAC address (Media Access Control address) is a unique identifier that is used by a network device to identify itself on the underlying network. Then we have the BSSID (Basic Service Set identifier) that is the MAC address of the access point. Even though this name doesn’t have to be unique, it can sometimes reveal information about the people or company it belongs to. First of all we have the network name, or SSID (Service Set identifier), that you connect to. Even though everybody uses it, there is more to explain than it being just a wireless network. Wireless Primerīefore we dive into the details, let’s first go over some basic terminology in regards to WiFi. But before we jump to our evidence, let’s learn a bit about wireless networking, Wardriving, SSID’s, MAC addresses and hotspots. Would you be surprised if I told that, if you use a MiFi or WiFi tether, people are tracking your location? They are and have been since the year 2000. You turn on that Personal Hotspot setting on your phone and magically you have a WiFi access point for your equipment. A mesh network provides multiple transmission paths with intelligent algorithms, it can manage routing to improve performance.Do you use a WiFi tether to get your laptop and other devices on the internet when there is no WiFi access point around. When access points overlap, they can be configured to help optimize the network by sharing and managing loads.Ī mesh network extends a WLAN's reach and performance, through the use of numerous access points that connect with each other wirelessly. Even with nonoverlapping access points, a user's connection is simply paused until connection with the next access point.Īdditional access points can be wired or wireless. Wi-Fi standards are designed to allow a nonstationary user's connection to jump from one access point to another, though some users and applications may experience brief dropouts. The most common security method for a WLAN is encryption, including Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) and Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA), with WPA2 as the standard authentication method.įor any sized network, access points can extend the area of access. However, determined adversaries may be able to join networks by spoofing an authorized address. The most basic method of securing a WLAN is to use MAC addresses to disallow unauthorized stations. To access a WLAN, a bad actor must simply be within range of the network. With a wired network, a bad actor must gain physical access to an internal network or breach an external firewall. A WLAN is more vulnerable to being breached than a physical network.