Originally Posted by ZeeOSix
Apparently there are devices people can buy so that they can search for broadcasting WiFi networks in the neighborhood and allows them to see the IP address, password, etc, and can log into someone's WiFi modem/router and change it's settings, etc.
Are these devices legal, and is it illegal for someone to use such a device?
If that's true, is there any settings in the modem/router than can be set to stop something like that?
It's called a laptop
Seriously though, what these "devices" would be are simply some piece of cheap kit, likely running Linux. No different than a laptop setup for the same purpose. They likely come pre-loaded with Airsnort and some exploit utilities; some script kiddie software.
War Driving was spectacularly easy back in the day, things didn't start to get difficult until WPA-TKIP came out, but even at that time there were TONS of wireless networks still using WEP, which was extremely easy to break into. Simplified version: You'd snag a capture, which would give you both SSID and a MAC for a client (in case it was hidden and filtering was on) and you'd just clone that MAC on your hardware and it was not difficult to crack WEP using some very fast, automated tools, allowing you to then participate on that network as an authenticated client.
TKIP made things much more difficult from an encryption perspective, and it was deemed a suitably "secure" interim replacement for WEP until vulnerabilities started to be discovered:
https://community.arubanetworks.com...dge-Base/TKIP-Vulnerabilities/ta-p/25384
On a network without key rotation, obviously the mitigation mechanism (short key rotation intervals) wasn't workable and that still didn't stop people from using the older brute force table method.
Of course even with TKIP, you were looking at a period of time to do this, requiring proximity. This meant they'd be an unlikely target for wardriving.
The best things you can do are:
1. Ensure that you are using WPA2-AES with no legacy support enabled
2. Ensure that you are using a complex network key
3. Ensure that you have the latest firmware on your device to minimize exposure to bugs/ exploits
4. Ensure that you've got a complex admin password on your device
5. Change your wireless power levels to only suitably cover the space you need it to
Some gear will give you to the option to log, and notify you of devices that are trying, and failing, to authenticate.
When WPA3 starts becoming more common, assuming all your devices support it, switching to that would also be advisable. But the above list still applies.