The Hacking Threats and Vulnerablilities of Wireless Networks in Organizations - Term Paper Example

This increases their chances of interception, disruption and alteration as compared to wired networks. Confidentiality can be highly compromised if the message is not encrypted. This can allow an unauthorized person to read the message. Sources of Threats and Vulnerabilities in Wireless Networks In wireless networks four basic technology components face security threats. These are; the transmission medium, access points, client devices (for example computers, PDAs) and the clients. Each one of them can become a loophole for any or all the other components to be attacked.

Unauthorized access to an organizations wireless network can result from an accidental association. This is where someone outside the organization turns their computer on and it connects to the organization’s network from a wireless Access Point (AP) (Anthes and Hoffman, 2003). Though it is not intentional, it compromises on the confidentiality of the organization’s information. It could lead to a link from one organization to another. Hacking can also be done by people forming a malicious association.

They make their own wireless devices to connect to the organization’s network. They use a cracking laptop, called “soft AP”, to access the organization’s information instead using the of organization’s AP. . According to Anthes and Hoffman (2003), hackers can be able to listen to an organization’s communications and identify the MAC address of the organization’s computer. This is called Identity theft /MAC spoofing. Hackers use programs that tend to ‘sniff’ networks hence gain unauthorized access to an organization’s network.

They also use some software that makes a computer to pretend to have all MAC addresses required by the hacker. A computer can be enticed to log into another computer that has been set up as a soft AP by hackers. This allows a cracker to link to an organization’s legal AP using a wireless card that offers a continuous traffic flow through the hacking computer (Anthes and Hoffman, 2003). hackers can also utilize existing security faults and abuse of protocols example Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) to carry out a “de-authentication attack”.

This is where the organization’s computers connected to the organization’s AP drop their connections and connect to the soft AP of the cracker. Software such as LANjack and AirJack enhance hacking because they automate multiple steps of the connection process (Clay, 2006). Hackers can launch attacks meant to deny the organization services through the organization’s network. This is called Denial of service (DoS). A cracker will bombard an organization’s AP or network with, premature successful connection messages, bogus requests and other commands.

As a result of this, the organization may no longer access their network. The network can also crash as a result of this (Clay, 2006).Hackers can also inject false network re-configuration commands. This will tamper with the intelligent hubs, routers and