SkyNET - Flying Drones To Take Down Wireless Networks

Scientists from Stevens Institute of Technology have developed an aerial drone to take down unsecured wireless networks in and around homes and offices. They have named it SkyNET. It's a combination of a toy helicopter and a computer configured specially for attacking wireless networks. This device can take down computers on wireless networks and drag them into botnets, which are mostly used for spamming, denial of service and hacking.'



SkyNET enables the owner to control the botnet from the drone rather than an ordinary internet connection making the botmaster hard to track down. The only way to track the botmaster now is either to follow the drone back from where it came or catch it on the fly and start forensic investigation on it.

Building the whole setup could cost around $600 which includes a quadrocopter, a GPS receiver, a 3G modem a pair of Wi-Fi cards and a modded Linux computer. But according to their computer science professor Sven Dietrich they are trying to make the drone less expensive.

The defences suggested by the scientists include not only password protecting the router but also shoring wireless networks by detecting new connections. The scientists have demonstrated this successfully and urged the companies to have technologies to detect other devices on their networks and take steps to lockdown the wireless access points.

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