These days, it seems that every bit of technology comes in a wireless version, able to connect to your home network via WiFi: notebooks, printers, mobile phones, even home theatre. This article discusses safety on WiFi networks, ie those that you can set up within your home or office to share your existing internet connection. These work within say a 25 metre radius of the wireless router. (You can also purchase a "3G" wireless dongle, which will connect you to the internet via the mobile phone network - these will be discussed in a supplementary article).
It's easier than ever to set up a WiFi network: many Internet providers will send you a wireless-capable modem or router when you sign up. However, they may not furnish it in an ideal state of security. Straight out of the the box, there are a merge of safety issues in most routers.
Wireless Printer Setup
Why does this even matter?
Being wireless, there's every possibility that you and the population you share your home with, are not the only ones who can see your wireless network. Anyone who is within range, can potentially use your wireless connection. You might have noticed this when connecting your own WiFi devices - there may be any networks within range at any given time. Any of those that aren't shown with a padlock icon, are potentially open for connections by Anyone passing by. This matters for two reasons:
they can use for free the internet association that you are paying for. they might put it to uses that you would not - downloading movies illegally, downloading unsavoury content, selling weapons to the Taliban etc
You will note on your list of local wifi networks that some show as secured and some as unsecured. You surely do not want to fall into the latter category!
What are the safety pitfalls to look out for then?
There are three considerations in regard to wireless security:
Your router's administrator password may not be set, or may be set to a default value, known to many. There are even lists of these on the internet. Your wireless association may not have a password set on it, so Anyone passing by may connect. The encryption on the wireless association may be at a low level, meaning that Anyone with the right tools can find out both of the above two passwords easily.
Most Internet providers now furnish an setup Cd which will help population set up options 2 and 3. Most connections that I see in client setups do have a wireless password on them, and most have a inexpensive level of wireless encryption (items 2 and 3) but unfortunately most also have the default administrator password still in place. I'll discuss how to check the admin password; beyond that point, every router is different. Here in Sydney, Australia, I don't see too many fully unsecured networks, but I see a lot with the default admin password.
As an experiment, try the following from your computer:
ensure your computer is associated to your home network. open a web browser, be it Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc click in the address bar and type in each of the following, in turn, pressing enter after each one. When you get a popup request for a password, you'll know you have the right address:
192.168.1.254
192.168.1.1
192.168.0.1
10.1.1.1
You should at last see request for a user name and password.
Now, try the following User name and password combinations and see if any of them work:
admin / admin admin / password admin / private admin / (blank, ie no password at all)
You will know you have succeeded in guessing the password, if you get beyond the login screen to a configuration screen showing the make and model of your router.
If you have gotten this far, then your router is not really secured and it is surely worth having your wireless setup checked out supplementary to ensure the rest of it is secure. A good repairer will also check out the built-in software in your router. Sometimes upgrading this software is a really worthwhile practice - it might give you improved speed or association stability.
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