Is it dangerous to know the most popular hotspots?

Recently, a worldwide hotspot service provider released some interesting statistics about the use of commercial hotspots in Belgium. Hotels in Brussels and Diegem (just outside Brussels, close to the National airport) are the most popular ones.

Some websites gave details on which hotspots exactly were the most visited ones. First thing that sprang into my mind was that every fraudster (no not wardriver, that's another thing) can use this information to more easily select his targets. Although just targeting the more popular hotels of business travelers is a no brainer.

By change, last week I was having the discussion on a forum on protecting our road warriors when using hotpots. The most secure option was a VPN client with strong authentication. But the problem that presented itself is that the users need to provide credit card information before they can setup a tunnel. A lot of the fellow security guys agreed that actually a 3G or similar out of band data connection would be the safest bet for (secure) internet access.

Whatever the technical solution may be, first consider the risks and the threats. How are the laptops secured? What kind of information is accessible or authorized to the remote users? Are the countermeasures worth protecting this information?

Whatever you do, be aware that using wireless communication is never completely without risk.

• First court case for wifi stealing in Belgium
• Belgian Wireless drifter arrested
• Karmetasploit 3 documentation available. Karmetasploit = KARMA + Metasploit 3
• Forget wardriving, now you have warcarting and warballooning
• Netgear provides alternative opensource router
• Wireless Auditing Toolkits
• Rogue access point at Dutch Airport
• New version of coWPAtty 4.3 and some wireless tips
• HowTo extend your WiFi range
• Ultimate Geek Shirt
• 50% of Belgian Wifi networks are unprotected
• Public Wifi at Blackhat and how to defend yourself

(Photo under creative commons from sincretic's photostream)