I had a more cynical thought: maybe events like this will trigger security-state politicians to require backdoor access put into all wifi routers (which are then open for NSA/FBI/ect).
I don't. There aren't any open wifi networks anywhere near my home, though. I assume if it did that someone would have noticed by now. That's a naive assumption, but given how many people actually look for such behavior, it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.
It's not surprising that people are suspected based on their IP address - most of the criminals involved in these kinds of crimes are unlikely to be tech-savvy enough to gain access to someone else's wifi router.
The problem with suspicion is that collateral damage to those who are innocent, but I don't think the answer is to not investigate.
I would not expect this to be a local attack via wifi. Internet is so cheap/free nowadays, why would you go through the trouble to crack someone’s wifi instead of using a public one + VPN or Tor?
I believe this was a remote attack. Either on their computers, phones or router. Consumer-grade network equipment is notoriously insecure and Vodafone has absolutely zero expertise let alone incentive to do anything about it - they just buy these routers wholesale from China for a couple bucks a piece and call it a day.
In case someone reads the cached version, I added a note about my point about Wifi after it was brought up that the attacker could be the Wifi provider itself so refresh the page.
Yea, this ^. This attack approach is interesting but any company that's serious about security needs to realize that anything opened up on wifi is a big hole - this used to be more amusingly exploited by war-driving, just driving around a neighborhood looking for someone with an open network that spills out into the street so you could download the latest episode of friends.
I don't work in this sort of security and it seems terrifying, the social engineering side is especially crazy.
Some buildings (hostels and shared accomodations) have shared internet (secured with WPA2). This type of attack might be particularly profitable in such situations.
Caveat: I haven't read the article linked in the GP, yet. (I will.) But the comments here immediately elicit this thought:
How many users have a laptop that they are connecting to one or another undefined (to them) form of "public" wifi? (And/or to someone else's internal network that may be compromised.)
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