Urban Networks of Wifi Malware
Living in an urban apartment complex, my laptop computer usually detects signals for 9 separate wifi connections in my building. Sometimes, they interfere with my own connection.
Maybe one of these days I’ll get around to changing the channel on my router; usually, I just step into the other room.
Most of the connections have some security, but it’s most often the insecure WEP standard. One or two are also totally open networks…occasionally I’m tempted to hack them and send them a friendly note telling them to use a more secure protocol. But, so far I’ve resisted.
These dense urban networks are ripe for attack, and not just by a single virus. A recent study by Indiana University revealed that malware can spread in these networks the same way a biological epidemic spreads.
Simulations showed that in two weeks, tens of thousands of Wifi routers could be infected, and most were breached within a day or two.
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