Blackjacking

Chapter 7. Hacking the Supporting PDA Infrastructure

The Wi‐Fi capabilities of PDAs make it possible for those PDAs to connect indirectly to the corporate LAN via public Wi‐Fi hotspots and directly to the corporate LAN via private corporate wireless LANs. This can be very useful and increase efficiency, but it can also expose the enterprise to exploitation.

Connecting a PDA to the LAN Is Good and Bad

Executives at The Professional's Link, Inc. were excited about using their PDAs. When they found out that their PDAs came with wireless capabilities, they were eager to use the PDAs to connect to public Wi‐Fi hotspots and the corporate LAN. If the executives could connect to the LAN with their PDAs, they could easily synch their email, access the Intranet, and stay productive from anywhere in the office without having to carry their laptops from meeting to meeting. The director of IT, John Mykee Scott, was then tasked with enabling the PDAs to connect to the corporate LAN. The Professional's Link was in the process of evaluating the use of Protected Extensible Authentication Protocol (PEAP) or some other 802.1x solution for use on their wireless LAN, but that project was at least a year out. The executives wouldn't be willing to wait that long. Plus, their PDAs didn't support fancy wireless technology like 802.1x. As usual, John wasn't given any meaningful money to implement the wireless solution for PDAs.

John wasn't left with a bunch of options, so he implemented the best wireless solution ...