738

LAPD warns residents after spike in burglaries using Wi-Fi jammers that disable security cameras, smart doorbells (www.tomshardware.com)

submitted 5 months ago by lemmee_in@lemm.ee to c/technology@lemmy.world

213 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The Los Angeles Police Department has warned residents to be wary of thieves using technology to break into homes undetected. High-tech burglars have apparently knocked out their victims' wireless cameras and alarms in the Los Angeles Wilshire-area neighborhoods before getting away with swag bags full of valuables. An LAPD social media post highlights the Wi-Fi jammer-supported burglaries and provides a helpful checklist of precautions residents can take.

Criminals can easily find the hardware for Wi-Fi jamming online. It can also be cheap, with prices starting from $40. However, jammers are illegal to use in the U.S.

We have previously reported on Wi-Fi jammer-assisted burglaries in Edina, Minnesota. Criminals deployed Wi-Fi jammer(s) to ensure homeowners weren't alerted of intrusions and that incriminating video evidence wasn't available to investigators.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 16 points 5 months ago

It's actually not that high-tech... Like jamming a wifi signal is basically like just shouting over someone to prevent them from speaking (or at least from being heard). To make one from scratch, you need a little bit of technical prowess, but it's definitely a beginner project... But to use one, you literally just turn it on, and maybe choose a frequency. They're widely available and cheap.

There are pretty cool sophisticated digital crimes out there though, so take heart!

[-] greyfox@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

I would think most wifi jamming is just deauth attacks. It is much easier to just channel hop, enumerate clients, and send them deauthentication packets.

This way you don't need a particularly powerful radio/antenna, any laptop/hacking tool with Wi-Fi is all you need. There are scripts out there that automate the whole thing, so almost no deep knowledge of wifi protocols are required.

WPA3 has protected management frames to protect against this but most IoT cameras probably don't support WPA3 yet.

[-] foggenbooty@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

That's a relatively sophisticated attack though, and like you said is dependent on versions of WPA. It's easier from a hardware perspective but more complicated software.

A 2.4 and 5ghz jammer is just simpler. Turn it on, everything fails. Even stuff that doesn't talk Wi-Fi like Zigbee. Throw 400 and 900mhz on there too and now even residential security sistems will be frozen. It's just simpler to use brute force for something like this.

this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024

738 points (99.3% liked)

Technology

60087 readers

2847 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS