Small Business Tech Tips

by Greg Williamson | www.everonit.com

I’m sure many of us have been there before: You’re on a business trip or in your backyard with your laptop. “Wireless network detected” flashes on your screen. You know you’re not in range of your company’s wireless network or your home network, so you look left and right for witnesses before logging on.

Thanks to some unsavory individuals leveraging our favorite untethered technology for evil deeds, we all need to take some precautions when setting up and accessing wireless networks. This is especially important for the health of you personal computer and home network and your business computer and business network.

How do you know if you’re on an unsecured wireless network?

When connecting to a network, your wireless connection program will explicitly tell you whether the network is secured or unsecured.

What are the risks of keeping your network unsecured?

Your unsecured wireless network could be accessed by anyone within range. Be aware of cars filled with tech-geeks and laptops hanging out next to your house for hours on end. The least of your worries include having bandwidth that you pay a lot of money for sucked up by your neighbors. More serious matters include:

• Your router could be re-configured by someone who knows how to keep you off it!
• Data on your hard drives can potentially be accessed.
• Delicate information such as passwords and info for your online bank accounts can be stolen.
• A key-logger and Trojan can be installed on your computer to relay your cherished passwords and info back to dark-side techies.
• If you never access any important data through wireless or wired connections, these hackers can even use your network as a proxy and hack into other networks and sites around the world while all misdeeds get tracked back to you!
• If you are accessing your company network through an unsecured wireless network you might be compromising the security of your company’s network

How do you secure your wireless?

Good question. There are many lines of defense including building 10 feet of concrete around your house on all sides and painting the walls, ceilings, and floors with wireless security paint ($69 a gallon?!). Realistically, you’ll want to consult your wireless router’s manual and setup as many as you can of the following:

• Change your default SSID & default administrator password – Out of the box, you hook your router up and to the world it looks exactly like the other 500,000 routers out there. Personalize your router with a distinct ID and super-secure P@$Sw3Rd and it makes it that much harder for someone to re-configure your network.
• Enable WEP or better yet, WPA – These encryption protocols will stop a free-loading neighbor but won’t halt the antics of a seasoned hacker. It’s still a good step towards security.
• Add MAC address filtering – Every network interface in the world has a unique identifier associated with it. You didn’t know that, did you? A simple google search on “find your MAC address” will tell you how to find it for your computer’s wireless card. With this ID in hand, you can significantly keep your network locked down. The drawback with MAC filtering is that it takes some tinkering to setup correctly and if you have multiple users or guest users, you have to find and add every MAC address to the filter list.

What about wireless hotspots and city-wide wireless?

Wireless hotspots are everywhere – cafés, coffee houses, lounges, libraries, and some neighborhoods. Some you have to pay for and some you don’t. Try an internet search on wireless hotspots to reveal some in the area of your next business trip. Generally, if there’s money involved, you can be assured of at least some security from outside the network. City-wide wireless is still in its infancy at this point and very few cities and towns enjoy full free wireless within their boundaries.
The best things you can do to secure your computer for hotspots are:

• Make sure Windows is completely patched up and updated via Windows Update
• Use the newest driver for your wireless card
• Keeping your anti-virus up to date
• Using a software firewall as long as you know how to use it well

How do I know that I’m stealing?

On the other side of the coin, if you are stealing internet access, chances are you know you’re doing it. Your wireless card can be configured to always try to connect to your network first before trying any others. You will usually receive a pop-when you are successfully connected. You can always try to track down whose network it is and ask if it’s OK to share their access. If it’s your neighborhood or office, what better way to meet your neighbors? I envision that someday, we will all share wireless internet, hold hands, and sing songs around a campfire, but until then stay off my network unless invited!

For more inormation on this article please contact gwilliamson@everonit.com.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, December 25th, 2005 at 11:54 am and is filed under Small Business Security Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.