Industry View

Security Under Siege at the Airport

Security dangers aren't always so clandestine. One of the most serious threats to your firm's security could be sitting next to you... in the airport departure lounge.

By David Michaux

BO2K is a well-known Trojan capable of taking full control of the machine it has infected. The perpetrator is able to view the machine's webcam, listen in on its microphone and watch a streaming video of its display, all in real-time.

Another lounge security lapse my colleagues foundthis time at a London airportallowed users to log on to machines as Administrator, meaning they could download and install any software. Again, engineers found keyloggers had been installed on systems there, configured to send information to an external e-mail account at regular intervals.

The danger is that the CEO types who travel on behalf of their companies and use these lounges are privy to unusually sensitive data. This makes computers there a veritable gold mine, whether it's executives downloading attachments from their Web mail and leaving them on the desktop, or even deleting them afterward but not emptying the recycle bin before they get up to catch their plane.

What's more, execs who do take precautions are likely to be let down by the lounge's security itself, especially if a hacker has turned its machine into listening posts.

As airport lounges increasingly offer passengers wireless Internet access, existing Trojan problems are being eliminated. But as so often happens in the world of IT security, this new era will usher in a whole new family of network malignancies.

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Until then, I've got a plane to catch&

David Michaux is the CEO of Scanit, a home and corporate security systems company with operations in Belgium, Dubai and Iran.

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