Wifi Reveals Where Someone lives, Works And Has Been To Increase

Devices with WiFi can reveal to outsiders where someone lives, works and all was going, warns a security researcher. Almost all devices that support WiFi finding previously used Wi-Fi networks. These "probes" are to absorb and contain, among other things, the name of the previously used Wi-Fi networks.One problem is that many local network names will be relatively unique, says researcher Stanis? aw Pitucha .

This makes it possible to draw up a list of home networks, corporate networks, cafes, fast food chains, hotels and other locations. These names can already give you an idea where someone lives or works, for example, be used if specific network names. However, the probes contain no specific BSSID, location or other data. Yet even to retrieve them. There is a service called Wigle that Wi-Fi networks maps from all over the world. Through the service are now 182 million Wi-Fi networks located.

So you can search for specific Wi-Fi network names. On the basis of the Wigle-Pitucha hits made, with information from intercepted probes, a folder. He was able to determine that someone is working on the US East Coast, for his work to Japan had gone and had been on holiday to Thailand. "This problem makes it much easier to perform social engineering or spear phishing, or even to find someone on a completely unrelated location that works for a particular company," said the researcher.

"Combine this with the fact that the MAC address identifies which phone model used person and you can find the right person in the group." As a solution, users can disable or delete previously saved Wi-Fi networks probing. Another option is for example the adjustment of the own Wi-Fi network name in somewhat generic. For Android Users there are several apps available that protect previously used Wi-Fi networks.