Serious Wireless Vulnerability

By Jimmy Daniels
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews

An exploit that takes advantage of a newly found vulnerability in Broadcom Corp’s wireless driver has been released. This exploit has the potential of affecting millions of laptops as manufacturers such as Dell, HP and Gateway and some wireless devices made by Linksys and Zonet use the same driver code, but each driver is unique enough that a single patch from Broadcom won’t cut it.

This flaw is extremely dangerous because it exploits the kernel of the operating system which means it bypasses all conventional security measures like anti-virus, HIDS, firewalls, and user privileges. The attack range is limited to Wi-Fi range which is typically 100 to 200 feet but can be extended with high-powered antennas.

It is unfortunate that the hardware manufacturers are keeping such a low profile for a critical flaw of this nature and Broadcom doesn’t directly provide patched reference drivers. Source: Real World IT

We Say: He has listed steps in which you can update your driver using the provided driver update for Linksys devices, but, I get the feeling that we will see lots of botnets created from public wireless access points from now on, since driver updates aren’t usually pushed as critical updates are from Microsoft, this could get ugly.