Hacking: The Next Generation

Chapter 6. Abusing Mobile Devices: Targeting Your Mobile Workforce

Today’s workforce is a mobile army, traveling to the customer and making business happen. Technology has evolved to the point where organizations can offer seamless transitions from the traditional office to work done on the road. Your employees need access to your organization’s data to get work done, even when they are traveling thousands of miles away from corporate headquarters. Once your employees leave the corporate network and hit the road, not only must they take care of all the logistical challenges of travel, but also they must navigate a maze of hostile networks.

The explosion of laptops, wireless networks, and powerful cell phones, coupled with the need to “get things done,” creates a perfect storm for the next-generation attacker. Each device your employees carry offers yet another avenue for attackers to steal your organization’s data. When your employees join the Wi-Fi network at the airport, they are under attack. When your employees plug into the hotel network, they are under attack. When your employees visit a coffee shop to send a couple of emails, they are under attack.

Hostile traffic will bombard your corporate devices. Unfortunately, the indicators of full-blown attacks against your mobile devices are not obvious. Although your corporate network may have the latest intrusion detection systems (IDSs) and a crack team of security professionals monitoring for suspicious activity, your lone employee ...