wireless networks - keep 'em secured!!!

[Chilihost]

last week I moved out of my apartment in the city to a rental house for a 6 week "holdover" period while my new house renovations get completed. For the first few days after moving I had to either use gprs or hop on to some anonymous doner's unsecured wireless network.

I got to thinking, even though it was very convenient for me, I could have done some serious damage to this guys systems with a simple packet sniffer or even a spam program.

The lesson is, if you run a wireless network, take 5 minutes to make sure you are running a secured, password protected network.

[IdolKnights]

Another thing to remember - the stuff that gets downloaded through your connection by a neighbor could be CP and your account will have this info set as just your connection.

[Dzinerbear]

Yes, isn't wireless a CP lover's dream?

Michael

[samebb]

Stuff CP.

You could be the unlucky one and get some1 unleashing a huge international virus, or attacking the pentigon ect from YOUR CONNECTION.


Ekkk. Your gunu loose your front door when those feds come after you screaming and hitting you with nightsticks

[ponyboy]

I only use my wireless when im useing the laptop, so after I turn it right off

[Trixie]

The lesson is, if you run a wireless network, take 5 minutes to make sure you are running a secured, password protected network.

I *wish* it only took me five minutes. I am retarded about stuff like that, and since we live in a fairly underpopulated area with only a couple of neighbors who are women I didn't think it mattered. I finally noticed someone piggybacking on our connection, though, and tightened it up a little but it's still not very secure (doing the MAC address thing).

[basschick]

it took me about one minute. only thing is we didn't bother because AT&T told us it was secured already. they were very mistaken and we found someone was using our DSL so be sure and check to make sure your line is protected!

[Daymare]

I *wish* it only took me five minutes. I am retarded about stuff like that, and since we live in a fairly underpopulated area with only a couple of neighbors who are women I didn't think it mattered. I finally noticed someone piggybacking on our connection, though, and tightened it up a little but it's still not very secure (doing the MAC address thing).

mac address spoofing is very easy to do. Google it.
I would take 10 minutes and setup WPA2 security (comes with 95% of all new routers, cards, etc, and most old ones are updatable via firmware at the manufacturers website).

DO NOT USE 'WEP' security for your home network. Again, doing a google of this will show you why.

You can crack 'any' wep password in 30 minutes tops. Again, do a google on this to see what I mean. Use WPA security at the very least, and last but not least do NOT use a dictionary word, or anything less than 21 characters for your passphrase on WPA


hope this helps.

[BrianDN]

Wow... Great info. Thanks for starting the post, Chilihost! I really didn't know that WEP was insecure and that there's WPA2. Thanks Daymare! It seems like things are changing by the month, so by the time I get one thing, something else has already developed! Can't keep up half the time!

Cheers,
Brian