[SGVLUG] if it possible to sniff packets if you can't get on the wi-fi network?

[Dan Kegel]

http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/12596/can-a-hacker-sniff-others-network-data-over-a-wireless-connection
might explain a bit about the raw wifi part.


On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 5:29 PM, Jeffrey Kutz <jdkutz_682004 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Interesting question. I am trying to remember back to my Network Design 101,
> where we used wireshark on a wired network. It was my impression that all
> that you needed was to see the traffic and wireshark was happy. It is really
> good security to keep people off of your Wi-Fi by whitelisting the allowed
> MAC addresses but I don't see where this would stop someone from seeing any
> open and unencrypted traffic. I would be concerned that someone would get
> enough information to log onto their private website via a route other than
> the local Wi-Fi. I would even question just where the security of https
> comes into play. Is there some open traffic before the http turns into https
> that would allow some evil-doer to cause trouble?
>
> I will be following this thread with interest. Next year I will get taking a
> security class at my local tech school. You can be sure I will bring this
> whole story up for classroom discussion.
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> On Sunday, January 12, 2014 1:32 PM, Homan Chou <homanchou at gmail.com> wrote:
> A lot of businesses offer free wi-fi access within their walls as a perk of
> being there.
>
> I have a friend that is a business owner that does NOT offer it because of
> "security" reasons.  In fact, in order to get on his wifi, he can't just
> give you the password, he actually has to whitelist your MAC address into
> his router or something like that.
>
> His web developer set it up this way because their custom point of sale
> program is just a website. And they don't use https.  So my question is, if
> that website login form was accessed over non-secure http is the login just
> send in plain text in packets?  Could someone theoretically observe that
> with wire-shark without even being logged in to the wi-fi network?  Or do
> you need to be connected to the wi-fi router in order to be able to do that?
>
> I think it's the former but I'm not a wire-shark expert, can someone
> confirm?  (Either way I will tell him he needs https).  And I want to
> encourage him to provide free wi-fi, and if his POS is secured over https it
> shouldn't make his business anymore vulnerable than he is now, is that
> correct?
>
> Homan
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