In November 2003, Toronto police arrested a man in an upscale
residential neighborhood. They noticed his car driving slowly
the wrong way down a one-way street. Upon stopping the car, the
police discovered the driver naked from the waist down. What was
he doing? He was using his laptop to download and watch ?kiddie?
porn from the Internet! How? He was connecting to the internet
using unprotected wireless systems in the houses near the road!
Here is the problem, if someone were to access the Internet and
download illegal material, then disconnect and drive off; it
would look like the homeowner did the downloading. How hard
would it be to convince the FBI that you were a victim? This is
not the only time this has happened. In a recent interview,
attorney Joseph Burton, of Duane Morris Law Firm, said, ?Is it
possible a home owner can be liable for a lack of security on a
wireless network? Yes, if they are negligent in setting up
security.? (Richard Shim, CNET News.com). According to research
by the World Wide War Drive over 228,537 wireless access points
were detected. Over 62% were totally open and unprotected! In
San Antonio Texas, the percentage of unprotected networks is
slightly higher. Some wireless access points can extend their
coverage over 300 feet from the unit. Sure, the farther away,
the slower the connection, but even one mbps is faster than a
dialup connection. Add that to being untraceable and you have a
pervert?s heaven! Having a wireless network connection is a
great thing; the freedom it gives you is priceless. With a few
precautions, you can secure your wireless connection and surf
the World Wide Web from the comfort of your easy chair, bed or
backyard. Conducting a casual site survey around your home will
tell you a lot about your vulnerability. Do you live right up on
the road? How far from your home, are your neighbors? How far
does your signal carry from the wireless unit? After answering
these questions, you can proceed to securing the wireless
network itself. Unfortunately, consumer routers are shipped wide
open. That is they have no preconfigured security. You, the
homeowner, will have to configure the security setting yourself.
Your wireless router and network interface card (NIC) are the
parts that actually talk to each other. Each of them has a MAC
address. This is a unique number assigned to every NIC made,
worldwide. Using this MAC address, you set the router security
to talk only to certain other MAC addresses. Therefore, if you
have two laptops in your network, you add both MAC addresses to
your router security setup and any other MAC addresses are
blocked. This security setup works well for keeping the average
wireless user out of your system, but a competent hacker can
bypass it. A technique called spoofing allows the hacker?s
computer to pretend to be one of your laptops and trick the
system into letting him in. To prevent this you would need to
add additional layers of security. Keep in mind though, every
additional layer of security adds to the burden of your network.
It slows things down. Litigation seems to be a national past
time these days. Protect yourself and your family by taking some
of the precautions listed above. If you feel you need the extra
protection offered by WEP or another encryption scheme contact
your locate computer technician and have him configure it for
you. This is an especially important decision for those who run
their own business and use wireless products. How angry would
your customer?s be if someone stole their information off your
network and used it to open accounts in their name? Identity
Theft is only one possible outcome, if your network contains
patient data you could be in violation of the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Then you would be
dealing with the federal government! Take the time to protect
yourself and your family. Security does take a little time, but
it could save you many problems down the road.
About the author:
SA Secure, a San Antonio Texas company specializing in desktop
support and help desk services for small to medium businesses.
Our goal is to provide an alternative to maintaining an
expensive in-house IT staff or relying on many different
individual computer repair technicians. Our services allow you
to obtain an expert level of cost effective technical support
without the need to maintain technicians on-site.
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