Hyderabad: There are apps of all sorts, some useful, some benign. How about an app dedicated to cheating – something that lets you get illegal access to anyone’s Wi-Fi password! It opens up a minefield for the unscrupulous, what with every household and public place having Wi-Fi connections.
These apps are already here. Smart phones running Android OS offer apps like WPS WPA Tester, Andro Damper, Wi-Fi Kill etc., which allow hackers to crack passwords of any network. Even a low-skilled hacker can connect to almost any Wi-Fi network and download whatever he/she wants anonymously and at the cost of an oblivious Wi-Fi connection owner.
According to cyber security expert Satish Chintha, “These tools were designed to check the access to Wi-Fi. But some people started using these to get access to internet. The app cannot crack the password directly. When a Wi-Fi router is set up, some characters get stored on it. The hacking app tries to match this code with the universal code. After establishing a connection, it shows the password. Codes are generated on the basis of the password we set. For example, simple passwords have simple universal codes and tougher ones have tougher codes.”
A person trying to access your Wi-Fi need not have knowledge of hacking. With just one app, a simple or weak password can be hacked to gain access to a Wi-Fi connection. By now it is common knowledge never to set passwords that resemble your name, birth date etc as malicious apps try these combinations first.
