Nowadays we rely much more on the internet for daily activities. Households have more than one computer or laptop in the home. These additional computers or laptops are usually connected wirelessly to the internet via a wireless router supplied by your broadband supplier. When you plug a wireless router in and start accessing the internet via them you are leaving your computer unsecure.
By default wireless routers that broadband companies supply are secured with a password. This will allow only you to access the router and keep out your neighbours. However the default security settings on 85% of broadband supplied routers are not good enough to keep your laptop/computer secure against someone that knows what they are doing.
If your wireless router is unsecure then online banking, credit card information, emails and all web activity could be watched and recorded.
This is called a man in the middle attack (someone between your router and laptop/computer). Of course they do not physically have to be in the middle and can be up to 150 metres from your router.
The first step to locking down your wireless router is to re-read the setup instructions. There should be information in there on how to change the wireless password. The technical name for this is the WEP or WPA key. If the router uses a WEP key I would advise to change to a router that supports WPA as the security encryption on WEP can be hacked in a matter of minutes by someone in close proximity to your home.
Of course if you have up to date ant virus software this can help against malicious websites or emails however having an unsecure wireless router will go undetected by all antivirus software. It’s hoped that this information will provide useful to households and friends as these types of attacks are increasingly taking place.
TAGS: Computer maintenance, IT support, network security