There is a great tool called backtrack. It is a LiveCD, which basically means it’s an operating system that can be booted from a CD.
Anyway the CD lets you boot into a distribution of Linux that has many tools for “hacking” or “cracking” computer systems.
I use the tool mainly at work to penetration test my systems. I currently support around 600 users here. The system we use runs at our head office and all computers connect to it to run applications and access files. With such a reliance on having all the systems in one place things have to be secure.
I mainly use backtrack to gain access to my companies wireless networks. There have been cases of some Polish guys sitting outside our offices in Elgin and tapping into our wireless network for free broadband. If they really wanted to mess with us though and knew what they were doing they’d highjack client connections. Meaning that all data our staff are accessing goes through their laptop first. This is also known as a man in the middle attack.
Apart from this type of wireless network thing I also warn customers of the security risk they have. I was in a customer’s house a few weeks back fixing her wireless connection. A big granite 3 story house in the Cornhill area. The wifi signal did not have a chance. I recommended the network homeplugs. However I also secured her wireless. You see the BT Home hubs which many people have are secured using a standard called WEP encryption. Which takes around 3 minutes to break into using a backtrack CD and the correct hardware.
I plan to help my neighbours out as well as there are a few BT Home hubs in the area. Lucky I’m an honest kind of guy and don’t go around stealing people’s broadband or worse man in the middle attacks. Booking a holiday online? They might take your credit card details.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging about backtrack with some in-depth tutorials for cracking wireless networks. Then it’s off to starbucks to crack to bluetooth headsets.