You hear a lot about wireless security threats, but do you know how many there really are? Or
what kinds of vulnerabilities exist? Or what exactly "wireless phishing" means?
The Wireless Vulnerabilities and Exploits group has been cataloging security vulnerabilities on wireless networks, primarily Bluetooth and the various flavors of 802.11, for nearly a year. Started by Network Chemistry, it now has 134 wireless vulnerabilities documented on its Web site.
"We started this because while a lot of attention is devoted to vulnerabilities in operating systems and software, much less is focused on the network layer and very little on wireless networks," says Network Chemistry Chief Technology Officer Chris Waters. Network Chemistry invited recognized experts from across the wireless industry to serve on its editorial board. They review and classify reports of vulnerabilities and exploitation attempts sent by a variety of sources.
"Anybody can send in reports," says Joshua Wright, senior security researcher at Aruba Networks and a founding member of the editorial board. Aruba recently signed up as a sponsor of the WVE. "We are very sensitive to disclosure practices, so we don’t make information available to the attack community before the vendors who mitigate these problems know it," Wright says. How many wireless vulnerabilities are really out there?
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