Public Wifi Especially Risky In Airports And Hotels

Most of unsafe open Wi-Fi networks can be found in airports and hotels. There is the chance that you log in to a hotspot of a malicious greatest. That's Janne Pirttilahti, Director of Product Management Next Gen Security at F-Secure, said Tuesday.

Pirttilahti demonstrated during Wifi Now in Amsterdam how easy it is to create a fake hotspot and people in the area to let the network use with the aim to steal private information from them.

Hotels And Airports

Hotels and airports are the easiest locations to set up fake hotspots around because there are a lot of businessmen or people who have to spend money, says Pirttilahti talking. "There are interesting targets, while falls in those locations do not like someone pops open a laptop with antennas. Sometimes it can even from a hotel room. But in a coffee shop is much faster suspicious."

Research by F-Secure among UK consumers also shows that many consumers are well aware of the risks they run if they use public Wi-Fi networks. A whopping 52 percent of consumers surveyed avoid using public Wi-Fi networks because they are afraid that their personal information into the hands of hackers.

VPN Connection

59 percent says open Wi-Fi networks not to use it because they are afraid of viruses or malware. Still, says nearly one in every three month to use at least once and sometimes daily public wifi networks. The advice is to at public Wi-Fi networks in any event using a VPN connection.

Kickstarter For Wi-Fi Router With VPN And Anti-Virus

On Kickstarter is a crowdfunding campaign started for the Veil Tower, a Wi-Fi router with VPN and anti-virus. The developers hope in this way to win a sum of $ 250,000. The Veil Tower was developed by the American Veil Systems in Detroit.

The device uses open source software, proprietary software and software developed by others. According to the developers, it was impossible and unwise to independently develop all features. For devices that connect to the Veil Tower will automatically use a VPN connection. Furthermore, the device has a network-based anti-virus solution and the router can be managed via an app.

Of the proposed $ 250,000 is still a month to go a little over $ 4,000 raised. The money raised will be used for the production. If everything goes according to plan the Veil Tower will be delivered in the second quarter of 2016. The Wi-Fi router will cost $ 199, as much as the OnHub router Google.

Malware Is Mac Users Via Leak In MacKeeper

Mac users who have installed warned the MacKeeper program for malware that attempts to spread via a flaw in the software that an update was published in May. Last month, a vulnerability in MacKeeper discovered that an attacker could execute arbitrary code with root privileges without much user interaction. The problem was caused by the way MacKeeper with "custom URLs" deal.

Braden Thomas researcher who discovered was a proof-of-concept that ensures that carried when visiting a specially prepared page with Safari arbitrary commands on the system problem. A few days after the proof-of-concept appeared online are also the first malicious MacKeeper URLs appear, discovered researcher Sergei Shevchenko of security company BAE Systems.

Phishing Mail

The URLs can for example be spread through phishing emails. When users click on the link, a pop-up warning that malware was found on the computer that must be removed. For this, the user must enter his password. Fills the user password, the malware is downloaded and installed. According to Shevchenko, it is a backdoor which receives an attacker remote access to the computer.

The malware collects all sorts of data on the system, including running processes, operating system name and version, user name, and the presence of VPN connections. According to the researcher, it is interesting to see how quickly attackers made use of the leak. To carry out the attack, a user must have installed a vulnerable version of MacKeeper. The developers of the software claim that MacKeeper has been downloaded over 20 million times.

Shevchenko also does not exclude that the attackers bombard their targets with phishing emails in the hope that one MacKeeper installed. After the leak last month became known MacKeeper came quickly but with an update that is installed automatically in most cases. It is also the question of how successful this attack campaign is or was.

Researchers: VPN Service Hola Big Security Risk

The free VPN service Hola appears not to be used for DDoS attacks, malware also communicated over the network. In addition, the software is such a big security risk that users can better remove VPN service, say researchers at security company Vectra.

Last week Hola came into the news because it resold the bandwidth of users to other parties. Someone who knew the company did then the bandwidth to be used for a DDoS attack. Also, researchers discovered several vulnerabilities, making it possible to track users and to execute arbitrary code on computers. The CEO of Hola promised improvement and suggested that the vulnerabilities were corrected, although researchers contradict this.

Malware

The DDoS attack via the VPN service is no exception, because cyber criminals Hola appear to have been longer in sight.During investigation of the Hola protocol Vectra researchers discovered five malware instances that also use the protocol."Not surprisingly, this means that the bad guys already realized the potential of Hola before the power of public reports published by the good guys", so put them in this analysis .

The investigation revealed further problems upwards. In addition to behave like a botnet contains Hola according to researchers various opportunities that seem to have been a targeted by introducing a human-driven cyber attack on the network from which the computers of the Hola-user stand.

It also appears Hola additional software without knowledge or consent of the user to download and install. This is possible because Hola after installation installs its own certificate on the computer. This additional code can be installed and run without the user would not be informed. "These capabilities allow a skilled attacker to execute almost everything," said the researchers. They also advise users to remove the software.

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IOS App Scans Password And Security Of WiFi Routers

Anti-virus company Avast at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona announced an app for iPhones and iPads that checks the security of Wi-Fi networks. The free app searches for Wi-Fi networks in the area and then determine whether they are safe. Thus, among other things, to see whether the Wi-Fi router that the wifi connection offers used weak passwords, the WiFi network is encrypted and whether vulnerabilities are present in the router that attackers can exploit.

In the case of unprotected Wi-Fi networks put the SecureMe app a secure VPN connection. Make in case users with an open Wi-Fi network connection, this VPN connection will be switched automatically. The app is free, but whether this also applies to the VPN part is unclear. Avast will first organize a beta test of the app before it appears in the App Store.