Can people hack into my Wii?
September 24, 2010 6:05 AM Subscribe
Is it possible for someone to hack into my Wii if I connect it to the Wifi network in my house? I really want to watch streaming Netflix movies on my Wii console, but my family insists that if I connect the Wii people will be able to hack into their Wii accounts and see all of their Wii Fit data like birthdays and weight.
Aside from the fact that no, people can't hack into your Wii, you might consider asking your family why anyone would want to find out your Wii fit information.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:13 AM on September 24, 2010 [7 favorites]
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:13 AM on September 24, 2010 [7 favorites]
Aside from the fact that no, people can't hack into your Wii, you might consider asking your family why anyone would want to find out your Wii fit information.
On the Internet, that answer often is "because we can"? I can in jest imagine a humorous Wii Fit War Driving exercise that gathered up the health stats of people who lived in a neighborhood so that you could see the relative health of a certain geographic neighborhood.
posted by mmascolino at 6:24 AM on September 24, 2010
On the Internet, that answer often is "because we can"? I can in jest imagine a humorous Wii Fit War Driving exercise that gathered up the health stats of people who lived in a neighborhood so that you could see the relative health of a certain geographic neighborhood.
posted by mmascolino at 6:24 AM on September 24, 2010
you might consider asking your family why anyone would want to find out your Wii fit information.
That was my first thought. Wouldn't you be more concerned about your desktop which has your turbotax info with SSNs etc.?
posted by caddis at 6:44 AM on September 24, 2010
That was my first thought. Wouldn't you be more concerned about your desktop which has your turbotax info with SSNs etc.?
posted by caddis at 6:44 AM on September 24, 2010
There is absolutely no risk of this happening. I find it interesting that they are insisting on something which as far as I can tell has never happened even once (theft and distribution of personal saved Wii data). Ask for their reasoning behind their stance and you'll discover they have no actual proof of their fears being possible (or even having occured one other time). Their position is probably based on fear of the unknown/ignorance of how technology works. I would approach them and say there is simply no technological way their fears can come true, they are worrying for no reason, there is no security hole made by connecting your console to Wifi to use with Netflix. If they insist thir fears are valid and deny the use of wifi I would ask for specific proof that supports their position, and if they have none I wouldn't hesitate to add that very point into the discussion. Hopefully it won't reach this point though, hopefully they are logical people who will see their fears are unfounded and rest calm their data is safe, but you never know with family. Good luck.
posted by Meagan at 6:45 AM on September 24, 2010
posted by Meagan at 6:45 AM on September 24, 2010
Everyone you've ever shown your ID to potentially knows your birthday. Everyone who's ever seen you potentially knows your approximate weight. If there's a list of things you should take pains to protect from hackers, these two aren't on it.
posted by rocket88 at 7:26 AM on September 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by rocket88 at 7:26 AM on September 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The only theoretical risk comes from the Wii's auto-update system. To take advantage of this, the hacker would have to have:
1. A way to poison your local network's DNS, so that outgoing connections from the Wii to "wii-autoupdate.nintendo.com" would instead go to "myevilserver.com" -- difficulty level medium
2. A way to steal the required encryption key from nintendo. -- difficulty level very high
I'd be more worried about getting hit by a meteor.
posted by nomisxid at 7:28 AM on September 24, 2010
1. A way to poison your local network's DNS, so that outgoing connections from the Wii to "wii-autoupdate.nintendo.com" would instead go to "myevilserver.com" -- difficulty level medium
2. A way to steal the required encryption key from nintendo. -- difficulty level very high
I'd be more worried about getting hit by a meteor.
posted by nomisxid at 7:28 AM on September 24, 2010
It is theoretically possible, but to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't yet been done. Anyone with the skills to do something like that these days is already doing it for profit, and I can't really see the profit motive in driving around finding out someone's birthday and weight.
posted by deadmessenger at 7:36 AM on September 24, 2010
posted by deadmessenger at 7:36 AM on September 24, 2010
Why don't you encrypt the wifi network? That would seem to me to be obvious first step.
posted by Biru at 7:38 AM on September 24, 2010
posted by Biru at 7:38 AM on September 24, 2010
Best answer: A laptop or phone on a wifi network is a much larger risk than a Wii, yet I assume you allow those. The Wii is a locked-down device that's fairly secure. Of all the devices I'd feel hesistant to put on a wireless network, the Wii doesn't make my top 50.
Not to mention, a lot of the attacks you might be familiar with that would affect your Wii are all external to your LAN and have nothing to do with wireless. MITM, DNS spoof, DDOS, etc will work even if you drag a ethernet cable to your Wii.
The only thing you have to worry about is making sure your wireless network is properly secured. It should be using WPA or WPA2 and have a passphrase that is not a dictionary word, preferably consisting of multiple fake words and other characters like "jih@@n_loves_his_Wii!"
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:36 AM on September 24, 2010
Not to mention, a lot of the attacks you might be familiar with that would affect your Wii are all external to your LAN and have nothing to do with wireless. MITM, DNS spoof, DDOS, etc will work even if you drag a ethernet cable to your Wii.
The only thing you have to worry about is making sure your wireless network is properly secured. It should be using WPA or WPA2 and have a passphrase that is not a dictionary word, preferably consisting of multiple fake words and other characters like "jih@@n_loves_his_Wii!"
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:36 AM on September 24, 2010
Salvor Hardin: "Aside from the fact that no, people can't hack into your Wii, you might consider asking your family why anyone would want to find out your Wii fit information"
Many people are very sensitive about things that are tied to perceptions of beauty. People lie (by statement or omission) about their age and weight all the time, and treat the truth about those things as sacrosanct.
I refer you to this question.
posted by mkultra at 8:52 AM on September 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
Many people are very sensitive about things that are tied to perceptions of beauty. People lie (by statement or omission) about their age and weight all the time, and treat the truth about those things as sacrosanct.
I refer you to this question.
posted by mkultra at 8:52 AM on September 24, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The only other even mildly plausible scenario I can dream up is that if you soft-modded your Wii using The Homebrew Channel or somesuch, you'd have the potential to open it up to some more vulnerability. But you'd pretty much have to do this intentionally, and I'm guessing if your family is being paranoid about simply adding it to the network, soft-modding would be entirely out of the question.
posted by SpiffyRob at 9:08 AM on September 24, 2010
posted by SpiffyRob at 9:08 AM on September 24, 2010
Use an encrypted Wifi network (WPA-AES not TKIP) and you're as secure as can be reasonably accomplished at home. Don't worry.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:33 AM on September 24, 2010
posted by blue_beetle at 10:33 AM on September 24, 2010
As others have noted, this is probably not something to be realistically worried about.
That said, a Wii Ethernet adapter is fourteen bucks. This may be a small price to pay for your family's peace of mind (or, if you'd prefer, to calm their irrational fears).
posted by box at 9:45 AM on September 25, 2010
That said, a Wii Ethernet adapter is fourteen bucks. This may be a small price to pay for your family's peace of mind (or, if you'd prefer, to calm their irrational fears).
posted by box at 9:45 AM on September 25, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
The Wii is pretty opaque as a network device. Aside from traffic that it initiates, it refuses to talk to anything. And all the traffic it initiates, it encrypts.
How do I know this? I spent about six months, off and on, trying to figure out some way to crack a Wii remotely. It just doesn't offer any sort of toe-hold to even start such an attempt.
posted by Netzapper at 6:12 AM on September 24, 2010 [7 favorites]