What Is a War Dialer?

A growing number of highly capable end users are exacerbating the problem of war dial-up attacks on organizations who know how to install software like pcAnywhere or bring a laptop from home and plug it into the organization's network. If users use Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), a protocol that lets network administrators automatically assign IP addresses in an organization's network, they need to perform minimal configuration. To make matters worse, most organizations will think that the database server is the last place to be attacked if hacked, so IP address allocation may be the weakest link in a hacking game. Microsoft has also been penetrated by the same attack.