Mumbai wireless networks prone to security risk: KPMG

A significant number of wireless networks in Mumbai pose a security risk as they are either unprotected on protection is inadequate.

According to a new survey by KPMG, though a large number of networks in Mumbai are protected, a significant number of them exist with either no or limited protection that can be easily compromised.

KPMG said many of these networks do not have baseline security measures implemented such as changing default manufacturer device names, use of strong encryption mechanisms and passwords, etc.

Releasing the findings of its survey today as part of the ongoing Mumbai Police initiative for the Cyber Safety Week, the KPMG  survey was aimed at identifying the security risks in a wireless network environment in Mumbai.

As part of its survey, KPMG covered 28,000 wireless networks in Mumbai, which showed:

• Around 9,500 (34 per cent) networks had either no or limited protection that could be easily be compromised with 4,700 of these networks having no protection at all
• Around 5,000 wireless networks had default network name settings, making them vulnerable to hackers
• Around 2,900 (60 per cent) of all business wireless networks having either no or limited protection that could be easily be compromised with 1,600 of these networks having no protection at all
• Around 4,900 (48 per cent) of all home wireless networks had either no or limited protection that could be easily be compromised with 1,700 of these networks having no protection at all
  (Identified by subjective analysis of their network names)

''The number of wireless networks in Mumbai has shown exponential growth," says Nitin Khanapurkar, executive director, KPMG in India. "While there has been growing awareness of wireless security, the number of vulnerable wireless networks that can be potentially misused, are significant in number. It was surprising to find that a large number of business wireless networks were unsecured. We should try to secure every wireless network, as a chain is as strong as its weakest link.''

According to IT Security expert Vijay Mukhi, ''Wireless security is important from a national security perspective. We cannot allow our networks to be abused by anti-social and anti-national forces. We need to support the Mumbai Police on this initiative as it is a matter of national importance.''

Some of the major risks of vulnerable wireless networks include unauthorised access to objectionable or banned sites, access to post objectionable material on websites, send threatening emails, extract bank account details causing monetary losses, etc.