IBM software aims to shut down 'drive-by hacking'

Elinor Mills Abreu

SAN FRANCISCO: International Business Machines Corp. on Monday announced

technology designed to close some of the holes in corporate wireless networks

and prevent outsiders from stealing data through "drive-by hacking."

The IBM software sits on laptops and PCs, analyzing traffic on an internal

802.11 wireless network and sending data to a centralized server, said Dave

Safford, manager of the global security analysis lab at IBM Research in

Hawthorne, New York.

"It turns machines into wireless auditing sniffers," he said. The

server then "crunches" the data and "spits out" a report

that can tell administrators if there are wireless access points that have been

misconfigured, Safford said. Access points are physical connections to the

computer network located throughout a site.

Wireless networks are cheap, costing less than $100, and convenient to use,

allowing workers to carry laptops from office to conference room to cafeteria.

Because they are easy to misconfigure, they pose a significant security risk,

easily exposing a computer network to attackers outside the building using

specialized wireless sniffers.

"Hackers outside the building, across the street, can connect in to the

internal network," Safford said. "They can use the network to break

into internal servers and steal data."

Enthusiastic employees have been known to set up wireless network access

points without informing their network administrators, he said. "We've had

audits of customer sites that have turned up 50, sometimes 100, rogue access

points they didn't know about," Safford said.

The Distributed Wireless Security Auditor runs on the Linux operating system.

A version for Windows is pending. The software will be commercially available

later this year, according to Safford. An early version, introduced last year,

ran on Linux on personal digital assistant devices. The new version includes the

self-sensor and self-diagnosis features.

IBM researchers are talking with managers in the IBM Personal Computing

Division about preloading the software onto ThinkPad laptops, Safford said.

ThinkPads are already equipped with 802.11 wireless network capability.