BINARYBB.info - John Galbraith

This is old news. Wireless routers have been around for 10+ years and we still fail to lock them down.  Do you really want to answer to the authorities for all the kiddy porn that was downloaded on your connection be some passer by.

Here is an analogy for you. You drive downtown Chicago and leave your car unsecure with the keys in the ignition. Someone “borrows” your car and robs a bank. The car is returned to the location and you get off work or out of your meeting and drive away without ever knowing that your car budged. You get pulled over and the next thing you know, you lawyer is trying to prove that you are innocent in the bank robbery that happened.  Hmmmm…. That could have easily been prevented by simply pulling the keys out of the ignition and locking the doors of your car.

As for your router, read the instructions and follow them for getting into the config web page.  Here are some tips for locking down your router / access point:

1. Choose a name (SSID) for you router that does NOT contain your name or address. This gives experienced attackers a target to start social engineering on.

2. WEP is OK, but a pain in the butt if you have guests you want to join to the network. Use WPA-PSK instead.

3.  When choosing your key for WPA choose a password that is not easy. If it is a word in the dictionary or is all numerals or your address or name, it is too easy. Use special characters, numerals, and alpha characters in the key. An example would be 3x@mpl3  If you look at it closely it spells out example. I subbed 3 for E and @ for A.

If  you still thing you are safe.. here is a concept for you. It is not uncommon for someone to get a PC, put a high powered antenna in it and leach your internet connection. The set up a firewall so they are stealth on your network. In addition to that, they have a LAN card in the machine and they are sharing your wireless connection to that connection. They cable that to a Wireless router of their own and wala.. they are online and you are paying for it.

So, if you are refusing to lock down your wireless, do your neighbor a favor and get the Comcast 22Mb service so he can use Bit Torrent without a hitch.