Oman Wires It's all about Oman
Sounds familiar? You could be the topic of a new technologies crime in the city – Wi-Fi hacking.
Such incidents are rampant in most components of Muscat which includes in buildings and villas in Seeb, Qurm and Al Khuwayr.
A resident of Tilal Complex at Muscat Grand Mall, mentioned, “I have seen many cleaners and random people standing next to our flat and checking their mobiles. Though they look very innocent and harmless, I find them almost every day standing there for long hours. And yes my home Internet gets slow. I can find some connection between the two but I cannot charge them as I have no clue what they are up to.”
Using applications, that are very easily accessible and free of charge on the Internet and mobile application retailers, 1 can very easily hack the residence Wi-Fi and access the Internet at will.
Explaining the problem, Tariq al Barwani, an IT specialist and an ethical hacker, mentioned, “Hacking or attempting to crack a person else’s Wi-Fi connection without having permission is a criminal offence. The device (mobile, laptop, tablet) can be connected by means of the technologies in the router referred to as WPS which stands for Wi-Fi Protected Setup. The WPS is a router functionality that connects the Wi-Fi enabled device to the router very easily without having the require of a username and password.
“All that a user needs to have is a Wi-Fi enabled device with the WPS technology feature, which most devices today have. It can be operated and connected by pressing the WPS button on the router and then on those devices or keying in the default WPS PIN of the router using the Wi-Fi enabled device. WPS automatically sends the network password, and these devices remember it for future use.”
The answer to this is to disable the WPS functionality from the manage panel.
“Every router has an administrative panel which enables you to modify the configuration of the router and by means of which you can disable the WPS.”
You can verify a video on this report at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnrJa_eqowo&feature=youtu.be
Information Source: Muscat Daily
