Scientists Demonstrate Virus That Spreads Across Wi-Fi Access Points

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the University of Liverpool have shown for the first time that WiFi networks can be infected with a virus that can move through densely populated areas as efficiently as the common cold spreads between humans. The team designed and simulated an attack by a virus, called 'Chameleon,' that not only could spread quickly between homes and businesses, but avoided detection and identified the points at which WiFi access is least protected by encryption and passwords. The research appears in EURASIP Journal on Information Security." The technical details are explained in the journal article.

Re:Keyword; simulated

[khasim]

My problems with TFA are:

1. Are they being paid by the word because they're throwing massive amounts of bullshit into it.

2.

A new form of compromised AP attack has been demonstrated and analysed in [4], called the 'Chameleon' attack, perpetrated by the Chameleon virus.

That would be a "worm". Not a "virus". And a worm that attacks WiFi routers is NOT new.

Re: Attack replaces firmware ..

[Anonymous Coward]

The article states chameleon attacks weakly protected acess points. If it finds a hardened one, like WAP, it moves on. It is a worm, not a virus, but the authors couldn't compare it to human contageon that way. I count myself lucky I never cought a worm. Virus, yes.

Re:Keyword; simulated

[khasim]

Worms hop from system to system without the need for any human interaction. They exploit vulnerabilities in services listening on ports. Worms need a network.

A virus infects other files with copies of itself. But an uninfected machine still needs someone to run one of those files on the uninfected machine to infect the uninfected machine.

Viruses are a lot less common now. Mostly you see trojans and worms and "blended" threats that are a mix of trojans and worms.