IT conference targeted, hackers

Date: April 27, 2005
Source: Silicon.com
By: Dan Ilett

Hackers infiltrated an IT exhibition last week and attacked delegates' computers with a new type of wireless attack.

Security experts attending the Wireless LAN Event in London last Wednesday found that anonymous hackers in the crowd had created a website that looked like a genuine log-in page for a Wi-Fi network, but which actually sent 45 random viruses to computers that accessed it.

"[This] gets very nasty as we've never seen it before," said Spencer Parker, a director of technical solutions at AirDefense. "It downloads 45 different randomly generated viruses, worms and keyloggers so antivirus software doesn't protect it. It doesn’t recognise the signatures."

Parker said that the hackers walked around the exhibition carrying a Linux-based laptop running software that turned it into a wireless access point. Initially, they labelled the hotspot "Free_Internet_Access", then "BTOpenzone" and then "T-Mobile".

Parker, whose computer was infected by the attack, believes that the website was up for half an hour.
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