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Best Buy bans wireless registers

By Greg Sandoval 

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

May 3, 2002, 11:30 AM PT
http://news.com.com/2100-1017-898710.html 

Best Buy, one of the nation's largest electronics chains, banned the use
of wireless cash registers at its 492 stores this week after learning a
hacker may have intercepted a customer's credit card number, spokeswoman
Joy Harris said Friday. 

The Best Buy cash registers used a Wi-Fi network, which uses a standard
known as 802.11b. It runs on three channels in the unregulated 2.4GHZ
spectrum, which is also used by cordless phones, microwave ovens and
many Bluetooth products. Because the information is transmitted through
the air, a person can "capture" the information from the parking lot
outside the store or anywhere within about 300 feet of the source. 

Harris said the store is investigating whether a security breach
occurred. She declined to comment on when the machines might be put back
in service or whether Best Buy has called in law enforcement officials. 

Wireless networks are notoriously insecure, but they have spread to at
least 30 million homes and businesses worldwide. 

Hackers say it would be tough, but not impossible, to use this open door
to ride the network all the way into a company's main computer. 

"Plugging them into your network is like dangling your network out the
window," said David Black, security technologies manager at management
consultants Accenture. 

The wireless cash registers are portable and were only used when the
lines got too long at the stores' standard registers, which plug
directly into each store's central computer, Harris said. 

"These registers are not Best Buy's main register terminals and (they)
represent a small percentage of transactions," Harris said. 

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