Misconfigured Access Point Attack

The Misconfigured APs are a type of security surface, that are the easiest to breach, if its detected. The place, where you will most likely meet misconfigured AP's are home wireless network or very small businesses. Large wireless environments are most likely using centralized management platforms that control hundreds or thousands of AP and keep them synchronized, therefore it is less likely to meet any configuration error there.

Most common areas of misconfiguration, that leads to wireless cracking’s are −

• Some AP configurations are left to factory defaults, like usernames and passwords or default WLAN's broadcasted (SSID's) and default settings may be found in manuals of the specific vendor on the internet.

• Human Error - advanced security policies are configured on a set of AP's across the organization, and other ones are forgotten and left with default weak security settings.

As a counter-measure against misconfigured AP, organizations should follow the ongoing site surveys as a tool to monitor a secure wireless environment.

Examples of a default username/password database for some of the Linksys wireless home devices are −