Am I really secure?

Curio

Curio

Curio

Soldato
Joined
14 Mar 2004
Posts
8,040
Location
Brit in the USA
I'm probably worrying over nothing...

I have a small home network which consists of 3 PC's and a lappy. The lappy connects via Wireless and I do have 128bit encryption set up. I'm just a bit worried because I live in an apartment block and I can pick up about 20 wireless signals - a few of which aren't secured. I just fear that in such a "target rich environment" I might be open to trouble. Is the encryption all I need? Are there any other precautions I need to take?

Thanks :)
 
Sounds like you're running WEP, in which case you'd probably be as well not bothering - if your kit supports it, use WPA.
 
One reason to feel less paranoid - if you are seeing dozens of open networks, then these will be more interesting to the hacker as less hassle to "hack". :)

If really paranoid - turn off your Access Point when you are not using it.

Definately try and swap to WPA if you can. Tolien knows what he talks about. :)
 
You can use WPA, mac filtering, hide your SSID set static DHCP. Generally most people won't be able to hack wireless, however there's always one smart arse around town.

Whats the advantage of using WPA?
 
JonRohan said:
Whats the advantage of using WPA?
Click to expand...

The encryption is considerably stronger than the flawed WEP system.
Provided you use a strong PSK (or RADIUS), WPA is fine. Hardware support's much better than WPA2 as well.
 
Thanks for the info guys.

Unfortunately, my Netgear router doesn't support WPA so I'm stuck with 128bit WEP.

One other thing I've just done, as suggested by JonRohan - I've entered the lappy's mac address into the access control section in the router setup. So even if somebody cracks the encryption they'll still be blocked. Unless that is easy to bypass :confused:

Anyway, I'm not too worried. I suppose, as said, the fact there's so many open wireless connections floating around is good as it will lure the casual "hackers" away :)
 
Curio said:
One other thing I've just done, as suggested by JonRohan - I've entered the lappy's mac address into the access control section in the router setup. So even if somebody cracks the encryption they'll still be blocked. Unless that is easy to bypass :confused:
Click to expand...

Once the encryption's gone, the MAC addresses are shifted in plain text, so they're easily sniffed.
 
tolien said:
Once the encryption's gone, the MAC addresses are shifted in plain text, so they're easily sniffed.
Click to expand...

Darn, of course :(

So, short of upgrading my router to one with WPA support, there's not much else I can do.
 
make sure the user/pass are change on the routers access.

try to disable your router broudcasting its SSID

mac address filtering does slow them down so do use it.

use a firewall on each pc system.

make sure your guest accounts are diabled on each pc.

maybe check nothing important is shared on your network. (files or folders)
 
Curio said:
Darn, of course :(

So, short of upgrading my router to one with WPA support, there's not much else I can do.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't have thought so. You are slightly at risk but not enough IMO to fork out for a new router.

Just be cautious, ive never had anyone have ago at any wireless system I look after and its over 60 different offices.

Can you cable any of the PC's?
 
MikeOCUK said:
make sure the user/pass are change on the routers access.

try to disable your router broudcasting its SSID
mac address filtering does slow them down so do use it.
use a firewall on each pc system.
make sure your guest accounts are diabled on each pc.
maybe check nothing important is shared on your network. (files or folders)
Click to expand...
Yeh thats always a good idea, having the default username and password is like leaving a door unlocked. Stopping SSID broadcasting is a bit pointless, you can force clients to disconnect from an AP, and the client will then send the SSID in plaintext, in a packet that is sniffable. Mac addressing will slow them down by not much more than a minute. Using a firewall won't do much, most secure way is by limiting macs, but if the hacker is mac spoofing, it won't do bub. Disabling guest accounts is a good idea, as is not sharing anything of importance on guest level shares.
 
i agree with what your saying partly, but the vast majority of people doing this will be script kiddies, as its non profitable. a firewall will stop or slow them down if their attempting to access any of your pcs.
 
Not really, because you'll set the firewall to allow access from your range of IPs anyway (or file sharing won't work at all), so it's as much good as a chocolate fireguard.
 
Again, thanks for the suggestions chaps.

MikeOCUK said:
make sure the user/pass are change on the routers access.

try to disable your router broudcasting its SSID

mac address filtering does slow them down so do use it.

use a firewall on each pc system.

make sure your guest accounts are diabled on each pc.

maybe check nothing important is shared on your network. (files or folders)
Click to expand...

Yeah, done all that apart from not broadcasting the SSID.

At the end of the day, it's only the laptop that's using the wireless so I could just turn it off until it's needed - it's only the inconvenience (and laziness) that's stopping me :)
 
if you dont use wifi that often its gonna take a pretty determined person to crack your wep key.
its cracked by monitoring your wifi traffic and piecing together the wep key.

at work iv created a box to generate counterfeit access points. it creates 53,000 of them. I've done this as we have to use WEP not WPA.
However its annoyed some other companies that share the same building as us becuase the 53,000 + access points show up to them aswell.
 
MikeOCUK said:
at work iv created a box to generate counterfeit access points. it creates 53,000 of them. I've done this as we have to use WEP not WPA.
However its annoyed some other companies that share the same building as us becuase the 53,000 + access points show up to them aswell.
Click to expand...
LOL!!! :D So does XP manage to actually list 53000 APs in the Available Networks list without crashing?
 
just a thought, but have you upgraded your routers firmware to the latest version (as this may enable features that weren't there) or are you running the factory config?
 
Im also interested in this box mikeocuk that creates over 50,000 access points! What software is it running and what hardware do you need to do this?
 
Fake Ap and a computer with a wireless card. It will need to run Linux, or atleast a Linux emu, and the card will need linux drivers.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom