Silica

The third annual ShmooCon hacker event wrapped up Sunday in Washington. Among the ShmooCon attendees, at least one person had not applied the latest Microsoft patches. Dave Aitel, of security firm Immunity, grabbed a couple of screen shots from that Windows user's PC over the air and displayed it on "Silica," his portable attack tool. Aitel showed off the Linux-based Nokia N800 loaded with Immunity's Canvas penetration testing software at ShmooCon.

Here, Silica is scanning a wireless network at the event venue for vulnerable systems. The gadget can scan wireless networks for vulnerable computers and attack them. Silica is selling like hotcakes, Aitel said. The device costs $3,600, which includes the hardware with pre-installed and configured software, updates for a year, e-mail support and a two-hour personal training session. One use for Silica: Mail it to your target's CEO, let it turn on and hack anything it can as it sits on their desk, Immunity suggests on its Web site.

March 26, 2007 12:14 PM PDT

Photo by: Joris Evers/CNET News.com