Description

 Wireless Watch (Look Who is Stealing Your Wireless
Network)





Executive
Summary
Information Technology (IT) security
industry experts continue to warn us that wireless
networks have significant vulnerabilities.


Taking precautions is a smart way to
mitigate risks. Relevant Technologies tested
Wireless Watch Home 2.0 (WWH) to evaluate its


claim as an effective and affordable
intrusion detection system (IDS) for home wireless
networks.

Background on Wireless
Security
Wireless networks are inherently
insecure. If you haven't put in place security
safeguards, anyone within 300 feet of your house


can tap into your wireless access point
and join your wireless network. Due to the default
settings in both Microsoft operating


systems and wireless routers, wireless
networks are so easy to join that your neighbors
might be using your wireless network (or


you might be using theirs) and not even
realize it.

Cryptography
Experts have
lambasted wireless networks as being easy to
exploit. While Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP),
Wi-Fi Protected Access 

(WPA), and Temporal
Key Integrity Protocol (TKIP) all add layers of
security to wireless networks, it is a
well-established fact that 

cracking WEP
encryption keys is not that hard to do. Most
people who use computers at home, whether the
computer is their own 

personal system, or
a laptop owned by their company, don't go
through the trouble to enable wireless security
protocols. Many 

people using wireless
networks don't even have a personal firewall
installed on it. Using wireless networks without
configuring 

security controls is risky and
means your systems and data are susceptible to
compromise by unauthorized users.

Record
Network Friends and Foes
Relevant Technologies
took Wireless Watch Home 2.0 (WWH) into our lab to
see how well it performed as an IDS on home
wireless 

networks. We downloaded WWH from
OTO's Software's web site and found that
it installed without incident. When it first
starts 

up, it scans your network and
returns a list of devices asking you to identify
them as friends or foes. For each device that it
finds, 

it presents you with the IP address
and MAC address, as well as the manufacturer and
probable type of device. With both


addresses, you have enough information to
determine a starting point from which to track
down anyone who tries to use your 

Wireless
Access Point (WAP). Access times are also recorded
so that you can trace times of data corruption
back to intrusion 

records.

Once WWH
is installed and running, it alerts you via pop-up
window and flashing icon when any new device is
detected on the 

network. This is WWH’s
main function and it successfully performed this
task throughout our testing. We tested WWH on both


802.11b and 802.11g equipment and found
that it is compatible with either.

OTO
Software Corporate Information
OTO
Software
1880 Arapahoe Street, Suite 3205,
Denver, CO 80202
Wireless Watch
2.0
www.otosoftware.com

Figure 1: WWH
alerts you when a new visitor is detected on your
network



Figure
2: Find out system information about your wireless
network
\"guests\"



Figure
3: Record usage times of your suspected network
foes



Other
Uses for Wireless Watch Home 2.0
The product
name, Wireless Watch 2.0, is somewhat misleading
in that it suggests you can only view users on
wireless networks. 

However, what we
discovered is that you can actually use Wireless
Watch to view your wired network guests as well.
If you use a 

cable service, Wireless Watch
tells who else is on your network segment. In
reality, Wireless Watch is a personal intruder


reporting system for any and all types of
networks. One thing we especially liked about
Wireless Watch 2.0 is that it enables you


to see if your wireless card has
inadvertently changed networks.

Parents can
easily track and record when their kids are
accessing the network, even when Mom and Dad are
still at work and the 

kids are home alone
after school. However, technology savvy kids will
find it easy to disable and turn off so if using
it to monitor 

your kids, you'll need
to not let them know which client system in the
house is running the software.

The downside
of Wireless Watch is that hackers can also use it
to see you and find out your system information.
Though it is not 

marketed as a wireless
scanner, it basically provides some of the same
type of information that wireless scanners
provide, in 

addition to its IDS functions.
As long as hackers are looking at you, you might
as well obtain the tools they use to look at them
so 

you can track who might be performing
reconnaissance on your system information for a
potential future attack.

Pricing and
Usability
Keep in mind that Wireless Watch 2.0
is a monitoring tool and it does not actively stop
intruders. It is a surveillance camera for


your network and if you want to record the
network passersby, it seems to work well and is
easy to use. No prior networking


experience is required to be able to use
it, although even experienced network users who
enable router security features can find


value in WWH due to its ability to detect
an intruder who may have made it through the
router security features. Wireless Watch


is priced at $29.95 a license, which seems
reasonable based on the awareness it provides. As
of this writing, Relevant 

Technologies
could not find any another products on the market
in this price range with the same capabilities.
Wireless Watch 2.0 

works as advertised and
offers significant network intrusion detection
capabilities to both wireless and cable based
networks.