Joe's Security

As with all articles on JoesSecurity.com, this one is for home computer users, and in this case, the one who wants to securely enjoy wireless (802.11x) access to their home high speed Internet. Wireless security concerns vary, depending on circumstances. For example, wireless access points in rural areas will have a much lower attack likelihood, than those in a apartment buildings.

There are risks when allowing outsiders into your wireless network, the two biggest are:

    - Freeloaders sucking up your bandwidth

    - Outsiders getting into your personal computing stuff

Typical wireless “attacks” might look something like…

I’m the neighbor next door with a few "skills" and notice a sweet, open wireless network nearby. So being a lover of anything free, I jump on. And since I do have a few skills, I decide to poke around your network to see what I can get to! Oh cool! I found your network-shared folders with tons of movies and mp3’s. Wow, look at this other cool stuff: personal budget spreadsheets, account numbers and...! Gee thanks neighbor, and I’ll even use your wireless and/or Internet connection to get that cool stuff over to my computer.

And since I like this free ride a lot, why don’t I just try to log into your wireless router with the default password. Wow, that was never changed either! Nice… I’ll just change the password, and lock you out of your own equipment so you can’t do something silly to lock me out... like put on a network password. I love you, man!!!

Of course you can undo this by doing a factory reset on your device, but that’s assuming you figure all this out.

With that in mind, applying security to wireless networking is pretty easy - a short list of things you “gotta” do.

Most home-grade, wireless devices default to full, open access and:

• Use a default login of "admin" or "administrator"
• Use a default password of "admin" or "1234" or just no password
• Allow login/admin access from wirelles connections
• Set no encryption
• Broadcast a default SSID (Service Set IDentifier, a.k.a. wireless network ID)

This just also happens to be the short list of things you need to lock down on your wireless device. So let’s look at each one.

Almost all newer wireless devices have a default, inside IP address of 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1. To access the admin console, direct a browser to http://<default_IPaddress> or in other words, something like http://192.168.0.1 . From there you can adjust all your device’s settings.

You know Joe likes easy steps, so here’s four quick and easy:

1. The first order of business is to change the default password to something decent, don’t use something too easily guessable like “joe” but something a little stronger like “J0eR0ckz!” 

2. Disable “admin” access via wireless connections. In other words, make it so you can only log into your wires device using a wired (Ethernet) connection. 

3. Apply encryption to your wireless signal. WEP is weak, but  is still around. It’s a 1st generation wireless security protocol, but is now easily cracked by anyone with a few free tools. Instead, use at minimum WPA (still crackable), or better WPA2 (assuming all your wireless stuff supports it) with a decently long password like “chocolatechips” – something easy to remember is ok so when friends show up it’s simple for them to connect. 

4. And unless it’s too onerous, disable broadcast of SSID and change your SSID from the default to something else, like “cookie.” When people browse for wireless networks from their notebook computers and such, it’ll show up as “unknown network,” then you just enter the network name, then password and Viola!

Most modern equipment (like Wii) supports WPA or WPA2, just check the documentation or its’ wireless configuration menu. And if your wireless device only supports WEP, then you’ve already had it for a while and are due for an upgrade.

If you’re looking to set up wireless for a business, your concerns also need to address the issues of reliability, espionage and intrusion attempt logging and notification. Home-grade wireless devices are not suited for these applications, professional help for business WiFi is strongly recommended.

So there you go, use WiFi but enjoy it securely.