Hackathon?

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Batman

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#139383 6-Feb-2014 22:56

According to this piece of news Russian hackers would hack anything connected to a wifi hotspot.

Is it that easy to do? Or are those connections ad-hoc hotspots?

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#981619 7-Feb-2014 08:20

Wow, that's spooky.

freitasm

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#981622 7-Feb-2014 08:25

Better use other word than Hackaton.

Batman

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#981623 7-Feb-2014 08:27

Yeah i might have to take 2 devices on my travels ... One very personal device that never latches on to public wifi and another spoof that uses wifi hotspots to read ... Or VPN! Hmm ... New year resolution X: read up about VPN to my home modem

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#981628 7-Feb-2014 08:47

Hang on ... The are not spying on data transmission ... acc to the report they are hacking into device ... (note not using that word) ... maybe vpn no good ... 2 devices it is ... But then I can't access geekzone or anything that needs a password? ... hmm ...

Dairyxox

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#981629 7-Feb-2014 08:53

It's a matter keeping up with the joneses. In the case the NSA

trig42

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#981702 7-Feb-2014 10:40

Is it just me, or is everything that comes from a US news source heavily biased against these Olympics and Russia.

Seems like a cold war hangover, they seem very negative.

Heard a correspondent on Radio Sport this morning (think it was Scotty from SkyTV) and he says everything over there seems fine, accommodation is great and no worries. From what the US Media are saying/tweeting etc., you'd think they were being forced to live in a labour camp.

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#981705 7-Feb-2014 10:42

true, it's possible that a very small percentage of people have struck anarchy but the very large majority have been pampered

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kenkeniff

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#981714 7-Feb-2014 10:59

joker97: Hang on ... The are not spying on data transmission ... acc to the report they are hacking into device ... (note not using that word) ... maybe vpn no good ... 2 devices it is ... But then I can't access geekzone or anything that needs a password? ... hmm ...

The report was pretty vague however I think both the fact they were using devices fresh out of the box (presumably without latest security updates, firewall or antivirus) and using public wifi were the key parts to this story.

- Install all the latest security updates for your device
- Keep bluetooth turned off
- Install a decent antivirus and firewall (block all incoming ports, network discovery etc)
- Ensure ALL apps and background services are actually routing through your VPN connection on your laptop/phone

...and you will be all good.

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#981750 7-Feb-2014 12:10

thanks. please humour a vpn noob

so i route all traffic securely to the modem in my house? or my house computer?

Dairyxox

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#981768 7-Feb-2014 12:32

Either, normally its done to the router though.
Why do you need a connection home?

I'm not a great privacy advocate, but understand people trying to make a point. Sometimes I wonder what the point is tho? Do you have some big secret to keep, or are you a really important person?

Google already reads my emails, personally I don't really care if some russians take a look at my call logs and see I called auntie at 9pm last night.

kenkeniff

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#981772 7-Feb-2014 12:38

joker97: thanks. please humour a vpn noob

so i route all traffic securely to the modem in my house? or my house computer?

mmm...depends how reliable your home internet connection is (reliability, bandwidth, latency to your travel destinations etc).

Unless maybe you're on UFB it'd be optimistic to expect a decent VPN connection to your home from somewhere like Russia.

Assuming you went with a public OpenVPN provider (like hidemyass.com), you have the option to select the closest server to wherever you are (i.e. Russia) meaning all traffic doesn't have to be sent back to NZ.

Now the HideMyAss Windows client application has an option of "Secure IP Bind" which forces all traffic to go through the VPN only, if you don't enable this some services/apps may leak out over a non-secure connection in the time it takes your laptop to establish the VPN connection at a public wifi. Many OpenVPN clients have a similar option (including the Android OpenVPN client).

If you don't trust a public VPN provider you can host your own OpenVPN server on something like AWS (lots of info online, even using free EC2 instance).

I find hosting in the Sydney region has really good connectivity to New Zealand as well as the rest of the world so perfect for these sorts of applications.

Personally I prefer to host my entire desktop in the cloud and access it over a secure RDP connection: http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=132&topicid=138576

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#981774 7-Feb-2014 12:40

hmm good point about my home connection's upload speed ... it's 3.5 at the moment ...

something to read about this year :D

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#982085 7-Feb-2014 20:22

That NBC story 100% fraudulent

http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/02/that-nbc-story-100-fraudulent.html

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#982106 7-Feb-2014 21:19

oops sorry

freitasm

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#982163 8-Feb-2014 07:16

joker97: According to this piece of news Russian hackers would hack anything connected to a wifi hotspot.

According to some this is complete bullshit.

...the most misleading part of Engel’s report is that none of what happened to the new MacBook Air (sigh) and smartphone used for his experiment required the user or the bad guys to be in Russia at all. Far from the hackers targeting his devices, he invited them in by clicking on questionable links — something any halfway accomplished PC user would not do.

Meanwhile, cybersecurity expert Robert Graham of ErrataSec proclaimed the program “100 percent fraudulent”, saying the ”hack” happened because of the Olympic-themed websites visited, not their location.

A friend working in the video trailers in Sochi said the NBC report is a huge topic of conversation there — and not in a good way.

“They sacrificed two new laptops and a smartphone to demonstrate how quickly hackers will seize your devices here. It was complete sensationalism. They steered the computers to known honeypots and pretty much invited the hackers onboard. I only know of one person who had any trouble. Her AOL Mail account was hacked after arriving here. My response: AOL? Who still uses AOL? Was your password PASSWORD? WTF?”

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