Unintended Certificate Installation into Remote IoT Nodes

Abstract

Public Wi-Fi is a service provided for anyone to use at public places such as community centers, welfare facilities and traditional markets in cooperation with telecommunication service provider of South Korea such as KT, SKT and LGU+. The government is building and expanding public Wi-Fi zones in a bid to reduce the telecommunication cost of all people and ease the gap in the wireless internet use by region and income. It aimed to establish 12,000 public Wi-Fi zones in and around welfare facilities and traditional markets by 2017 (7000 new ones and 5000 open to public by the telecommunication service providers). The public Wi-Fi policy made it possible for people to use it for free at most of those places and eventually reduce their telecommunication cost. However, the service is vulnerable to various security threats. The study reviewed ways to reduce possible infringement of users’ personal information and vulnerability by simulating and examining scenarios under which the vulnerability can take place. Threats arising from the vulnerability may lead to infringement of personal information and sensitive information as well as additional attacks through unauthorized communication channels. Therefore, the study introduced problems attributable to the process of connecting to public Wi-Fi and investigated types of attack that can happen in the process and ways to address them.