in the past scientists and security researchers have tapped into the options of exploiting wifi security vulnerabilities however they used rather bulky and expensive devices to explore flaws in wifi security now a research team from university of waterloo has actually developed a device that can be clipped to a drone and can access wifi networks to see through wallswhat is the device and how it workscalled wipeep the device can fly near a building and use residents wifi network to identify and locate all wifienabled devices inside in a matter of seconds according to a media release shared by the university wipeep exploits a loophole the researchers call polite wifi even if a network is password protected smart devices will automatically respond to contact attempts from any device within range the wipeep sends several messages to a device as it flies and then measures the response time on each enabling it to identify the devices location to within a metre noted the release ali abedi adjunct professor of computer science at waterloo further explained why this discovery was significant the wipeep devices are like lights in the visible spectrum and the walls are like glass abedi said using similar technology one could track the movements of security guards inside a bank by following the location of their phones or smartwatches likewise a thief could identify the location and type of smart devices in a home including security cameras laptops and smart tvs to find a good candidate for a breakin in addition the devices operation via drone means that it can be used quickly and remotely without much chance of the user being detectedabedis team actually built the device using a storebought drone and 20 of easily purchased hardware the team as per abedi built the wipeep to test their theory and quickly realised that anyone with the right expertise could easily create a similar device