Week 11 Takeaways

Assigned Readings:

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 is a set of media access control and physical layer for providing connectivity between wireless technology and wired networking infrastructures (i.e.: 900 MHz and 2.4, 3.6.5, and 60 GHz frequency bands).  The proper implementation of 802.11 protocol and associated technologies, enables the mobile user to travel to various places (i.e.: lobbies, conference rooms, etc.) and still have access to the networked data. The 802.11 logical architecture is composed of a station (STA), wireless access point (AP), independent basic service set (IBSS), basic service set (BSS), distribution system (DS), and extended service set (ESS). The operating modes include infrastructure mode and ad hoc mode. In the infrastructure mod there is at least one wireless AP and one wireless client whereas in the ad hoc mode, wireless clients communicate directly with each other without the use of a wireless AP. Securing the 802.11 can be challenging but it has certainly evolved over the years using various encryption standards where flaws are still present and can allow a remote attack, such as when a remote attacker recovers the WPS PIN.
In the news:
“Seagate Employee Tax Forms Stole in Phishing Attack”

The W-2 tax documents of several thousand current and former employees of data storage company Seagate ended up in the hands of fraudsters after an employee fell victim to a phishing attack. It is predicted that less than 10,000 employee’s information ended up in the wrong hands. In the meantime, Seagate will cover the costs of a two-year Experian ProtectMyID membership for affected employees. It’s not uncommon for such information to be abused by fraudsters. The tax agency reported last month that cybercrooks had used stolen SSNs to generate over 100,000 PINs on the IRS’s Electronic Filing PIN application. Business email compromise (BEC) scams, such as the one targeted at Seagate, are also increasingly common. Aircraft parts manufacturer FACC AG revealed in January that cybercriminals managed to steal $54 million in a scheme targeting the company’s finance department.

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