A new danger to wireless network security has been revealed by a team of US computer researchers. A so-called "wormhole attack" could be used to knock a vulnerable network out of action or defeat a wireless authentication system, as reported by New Scientist. But the same researchers that discovered the threat have also devised a radical scheme designed to counter it, involving tagging packets with GPS information or timestamps. In a wormhole attack, an intruder would intercept wireless data packets travelling across one part of a network and quickly re-insert them at another physical point on the network. "Ad-hoc" wireless computer networks could be severely disrupted using the technique. These operate by passing communications from one node to the next until they reach their destination, rather than being controlled by a central server. Ad-hoc networks are used to extend the range of wireless LAN networks, and are also used by the military and emergency services. Full article here