88% of Mumbai Wireless Networks are open for hackers

Now this is something that sounds really scary!

Deloitte studied the Mumbai wireless networks and here are some interesting results:

• Of the total networks sampled (6700), around 36% appeared to be unprotected i.e. not having any encryption on them.
• 52% were using low level of protection i.e Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption
• Only 12% networks were using the more secure Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) or WPA2.
• 1852 appeared to be business wireless networks. Of these, 42% appeared to have no
  encryption at all.
• 2815 seemed to be residential wireless networks based on nomenclature of the SSID broadcast. Of these, 26% appeared to have no encryption.

So, essentially 88% are relatively easy to compromise – something that owners need to really worry about (especially given the latest case on terrorist’s hacking expertise where they used open wi-fi signals to send emails).

What do you think is the root cause? Lack of awareness?

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