Work Notes 8/3/22

 Guest WiFi

Today I discovered one of our clients has only one WiFi SSID. They also provide the WiFi password to all their visitors on a convenient little business card. 

What's the big deal with this? The average internal network is going to be full of juicy targets for a malicious attacker. Normally, these targets hide behind a firewall and threat actors can't access them directly. This includes domain controllers, workstations, databases, etc. But if you just give attackers access on an index card, the external network defenses are useless.

Of course, we'd like to believe that only legitimate guests to the business will be invited onto the network. In reality, once a password starts to get shared, it finds its way out there. Pieces of paper with the preshared key inevitably make their way into the trash, where a determined dumpster diver will cackle with glee as they open their gift-wrapped point of entry.

Companies need to follow best practices here, which starts with having a distinct guest WiFi SSID. This SSID should allow access only to the Internet and certainly not to any critical infrastructure. 

Second, preshared key authentication is not sufficient. Invest in RADIUS authentication for your wireless networks and get rid of writing the Wi-Fi password on the wall.

Go one step further and create VLANs ensuring that each user only has network access to the systems that they need to do their job.

Finally, sleep well knowing your network is that much more secure!

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