Spyware-spewing Wi-Fi drone found on Hacking Team, Boeing's to-do list Leaked emails have exposed plans by Hacking Team and a Boeing subsidiary to deliver spyware via drones for sale to government agencies. The scheme proposed the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) to deliver Hacking Team's Remote Control System Galileo spyware via Wi-Fi networks from above. Boeing subsidiary Insitu …
If so, you deserve to get snooped.
Of course there's some question of how good the VPN implementation is and whether you can trust the supplier.
You can roll your own VPN but then you have to trust your router software.
But if someone's already installed keyloggers via USB malware or disk BIOS, it's too late and why bother.
Shite - I'm just going to put this message into the postal mail with a wax seal on it.
"Shite - I'm just going to put this message into the postal mail with a wax seal on it."
The UK Royal Mail was effectively given a monopoly by King Charles as a means of funnelling all written mail through his offices for inspection. There it was opened, copied, and re-sealed - without leaving any signs of tampering. Some of the copies are still in the archives today.
Queen Elisabeth I secret Police Chief, Francis Walsingham, basically read everyone's mail, even if in code.
Anyone still using a non-VPN WiFi?
If so, you deserve to get snooped.
Well, at least you know know the real purpose of this project. Or did you really think they would do anything for the public good? Really?
The drone detects your WiFi and hovers/hangs around overhead while the spooks on the other side of the world break the WPA2 or whatever encryption you are using OR some backdoor left in thet their behest and then they install their package of spyware and ar gone before you know it has happened.
Brings a new meaning to Wardriving or should I say Warflying?
What use external firewalls now eh?
External firewalls were never a defence except against the one single line they were explicitly protecting. Far too often I could turn up to a client site, hook up a cable, and have apparently full access to everything.
Perimeter security is just that- perimeter security. If the perimeter changes, or is breached/bypassed, you're undefended.
How long before....
The drone detects your WiFi and hovers/hangs around overhead while the spooks on the other side of the world break the WPA2 or whatever encryption you are using OR some backdoor left in thet their behest and then they install their package of spyware and ar gone before you know it has happened.
What I find staggering is that of all the talented people out there, nobody has come up with an approach that would infect the infector and turn the game on its head. The moment the USB memory is jacked in it ought to be overwritten with some fun stuff.
If I were someone up to no good, I suspect I'd spend some money on developing just that. I'd even leave the door open :).
This immediately made me think of crop-dusting because that's so close to what you are doing - flying over and spraying everything and hoping for maximum effect. And as we are infecting via transmitted signals, possibly a tenuous Threshold reference too.
If you smell something that might work given another go, circle and be a bit more active. To make sure nobody spots you, use a range-booster, fly higher, and just hope that nobody with binoculars gets the idea that a drone with a pringles tin hanging off it is maybe a bit dodgy. (just seen similar remark above, my slow typing strikes again)
Black helicopter because well, duh.
To make sure nobody spots you, use a range-booster, fly higher, and just hope that nobody with binoculars gets the idea that a drone with a pringles tin hanging off it is maybe a bit dodgy
Fly one of those puppies around the towers at Canary Wharf and I reckon exceptionally few of my colleagues would even suspect something computer secruity related was going on - most people, even within IT, are very poorly educated about computer security. Attach a small advertising banner on it for something interesting and they'd be even less suspicious. Plenty of corporate WiFi here to try and exploit.
The real fun will come when/if someone is ever able to miniturise a mobile phone base station such that it can fit on a drone.
No comments about why my earlier one was wrong or offensive but lots of downvotes. Guess the closeted WifFi slurpers at the coffee shops don't want to be bothered with that thing called privy-see. Or perhaps there are some entities that don't like the idea of all that encrypted traffic flying around.
I didn't downvote it, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that you appear to suggest that a VPN is the only solution.
First of all, people are too used accepting fake certs - many hotel WiFis I've come across try to make me accept a cert that is invalid, and that basically puts the nail into that one for the average end user.
Secondly, even if it's an open WiFi you can use services like email, provided they are encrypted so either use straight SSL or start protocol with STARTTLS, or webmail using https:// web links. Slight caveat: that is using your own equipment. I'd never pick up email on a hotel computer - ever.
To recap, a VPN isn't the only solution. Besides, we should act against this idea itself, not trying to avoid the discussion by using technical sticky tape over the problem.
Not much further now, drones are getting smaller, slurpy and shooty.
Jeff Noon has a good line on this:
"The blurbs are the property of the AnnoDomino Co., invented to perpetuate their messages of luck and hope beyond the normal channels.
Blurbflies are allowd to travel the streets, buzzing their adverts alive and direct to the punters.
Blurbs shall stand for Bio-Logical-Ultra-Robotic-Broadcasting-System.
Only the company shall manufacture the blurbs. Other businesses or individuals may purchase blurbs from the Company, pre-loaded with messages and armed to the teeth, for the appropriate price.
None but the company shall know the insides of a blurb.
None but the Company shall capture a blurb.
If captured, a blurb may take the necessary steps to escape."
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
