7 ms·
When you turn your WiFi on, you can be tracked and attacked very easily. This is been known for a while, though not widely enough. If at one time you connected
by gipsies 13y ago
When you turn your WiFi on, you can be tracked and attacked very easily. This is been known for a while, though not widely enough.
If at one time you connected to an open network, your devices continues to scan for that network. I can spoof that network, you connect to it, and then I intercept all traffic. A full framework has been created for this, complete with the ability to fingerprint your browser/OS and send exploits to your device [1]. Even if you only connect to password protected networks, it's possible (without access to the real AP) to let your clients send parts of the EAPOL handshake, and then perform a bruteforce attack. Weak passwords are cracked, meaning I can again intercept all traffic and possibly exploit your device.
So you only connect to one single network, strong password. Good. I can still track your MAC address. Even with one single device I can estimate the distance and the angle of your signal [2]. Hence I know your location, at all times. So you prevent MAC address tracking by using an identifier-free link layer protocol [3] (this doesn't exist in practice, only researchers made a demo showing its possible). Though a lot better, even with such a system it's possible to track the movement of devices purely based on the fingerprint of the physical WiFi signal [4]. Given sufficient location data it's likely to again (automatically) de-anonimize the dataset and track your movements (it's more complicated, yes, but still possible).
[1] http://www.sensepost.com/blog/7557.html http://www.sensepost.com/blog/7557.html
[2] Avoiding Multipath to Revive Inbuilding WiFi Localization
[3] Improving Wireless Privacy with an Identifier-Free Link Layer Protocol Ben
[4] SecureArray: improving wifi security with fine-grained physical-layer information
- icebraining 13y agoSo you prevent MAC address tracking by using an identifier-free link layer protocol [3] (this doesn't exist in practice, only researchers made a demo showing its possible). Or you could just randomize your MAC occasionally. If you're not even connected to a network (which is the situation we're discussing), just scanning, there's no reason for keeping a static MAC.