A behind-the-scenes security war raged at a recent Wi-Fi trade show, according to a company that provides wireless LAN security monitoring products. Most attendees and exhibitors didn't know they were the subjects of the often-successful attacks, according to AirDefense, Inc. The company monitored the airwaves at the Wi-Fi Planet Expo held earlier in December in San Jose.. . .
A behind-the-scenes security war raged at a recent Wi-Fi trade show, according to a company that provides wireless LAN security monitoring products. Most attendees and exhibitors didn't know they were the subjects of the often-successful attacks, according to AirDefense, Inc. The company monitored the airwaves at the Wi-Fi Planet Expo held earlier in December in San Jose.

One likely reason for the attacks was to gather competitive intelligence, according to Fred Tanzella, AirDefense's chief security officer.

"You can go around to your competitors' booths to get competitive information, but this type of attack is more aggressive," Tanzella said in an interview Monday. After a successful attack, hackers can get into their victims' corporate LANs, he noted. Tanzella acknowledged, though, that he had no first-hand information about why the attacks were launched or who launched them.

AirDefense maintained that, in a single day at the show, it detected 21 attempted man-in-the-middle attacks, 16 of which succeeded. These attacks can steal user names and passwords from improperly protected Wi-Fi clients logging on to a virtual private network, Tanzella said.

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