Wifi hack

Just in case you haven’t heard/seen the news on the internet, a basic exploit has been discovered in the Wifi architecture, and that exploit has been hacked. That means potentially everything that uses wifi to communicate is vulnerable.

And that includes:

• computers via their router
• smartphones
• tablets
• Amazon’s Alexa [I think]
• and even cars

Apparently Windows based computers should already be updated against this exploit, although how Microsoft managed to find out so quickly is a worry. However, that is only the computer operating system itself. The router also handles things like internet banking and I have no idea how secure that is now.

Android and Linux are both vulnerable. I believe Apple is too.

As most people these days have wifi routers [the box with the flickering lights that sits between your computer and the internet], I would strongly recommend checking with your ISP* about when you can expect a security update for the router. ISPs are your service providers – e.g. Telstra, Optus etc. Until you get one, I would keep internet transactions dealing with money to an absolute minimum.

Actually, you might consider going around with wads of cash for a while. No seriously.

Oh, and don’t use the free wifi in your local shopping centre because such locales are plenty big enough to make them worthwhile for hacking.**

If any of my techie friends has info to share I’d really appreciate it.

cheers

Meeks

* When you sign up with an ISP, they usually provide you with a router [for a fee] so the ISP should provide info. on updating the router.

** Although this hack is universal, it is constrained by the hacker’s need to be physically within reach of the wifi he/she wants to hack. So home wifi is not that ‘worthwhile’, but a large shopping centre probably would be.