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Wireless is an evolving technology which is not inherently secure. Information on a wireless network is
most likely not encrypted, so it is possible for another user on the network to use a 'network sniffer' to
capture your data while in transit.
Unless you take certain precautions, anyone with a wireless-ready computer can use your network.
That means your neighbors, or even hackers lurking nearby, could “piggyback” on your network,
or even access the information on your computer. And if an unauthorized person uses your network
to commit a crime or send spam, the activity can be traced back to your account. |
| You want to avoid man in the middle attacks. Make it your policy to use a secure login feature SSL (secure sockets layer) for email, e.g. (Yahoo), to protect your password and run personal firewall software on your laptop to protect against illicit attempts to access data on your machine. Consider encrypting your files, and preferably entire hard drive volumes, using PGPdisk. Switch to a Mac or some non-Windows operating system while you're at it. NSA has developed and distributed configuration guidance for Apple Operating Systems. This guidance can be used as a security baseline. Also, password-protect your computer, including a boot password. | |
FBI Best Practices for Home Users to Prevent Hackers from Getting into Your Network
Step-By-Step Wireless SecuritySSID Set to not Broadcast How to stay under the radar
WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) can be defeated. Consider using WPA-PSK (pre-shared key mode, also known as personal mode) for a home LAN. WPA-PSK is vulnerable to dictionary attacks, if a hash of the pre-shared key can be gleaned by listening in on the 4 way handshake used to initiate the connection, so use a long key. It's convenient to use a 40-60 character sentence that you can easily remember. Choose a sentence (or a line from a song, a quote from a favorite book, or something similar) that is significant to you and use that. You can try a key generator but the key generator approach makes sharing the key harder and might not add much more security to a brute force attack. TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) is a security protocol used in Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA). | |
GlossaryEncryption: The scrambling of data into a secret code that can be read only by software set to decode the information. Extended Service Set Identifier (ESSID): The name a manufacturer assigns to a router. It may be a standard, default name assigned by the manufacturer to all hardware of that model. Users can improve security by changing to a unique name. Similar to a Service Set Identifier (SSID). Firewall: Hardware or software designed to keep hackers from using your computer to send personal information without your permission. Firewalls watch for outside attempts to access your system and block communications to and from sources you don’t permit. Media Access Control (MAC) Address: A unique number that the manufacturer assigns to each computer or other device in a network. Router: A device that connects two or more networks. A router finds the best path for forwarding information across the networks. Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP): A security protocol that encrypts data sent to and from wireless devices within a network. Not as strong as WPA encryption. Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA): A security protocol developed to fix flaws in WEP. Encrypts data sent to and from wireless devices within a network. Wireless Network: A method of connecting a computer to other computers or to the Internet without linking them by cables. | |
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