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Secure-wifi in leeds providing safety and security to home users wifi connections

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Wireless Security Risks

Why is it so important and why do you need to keep your router or Wi-Fi connection secure? An open/unsecured wireless router or connection means that anyone can share your Internet connection and use it to browse raunchy, racist or other offensive websites using your IP address. Aside from that, it can also slow down the performance of your Internet connection.

Having an open/unsecured wireless connection will also leave you exposed to other serious threats which could lead to serious problems like online fraud and identity theft which are very common these days.

Call now and book our engineer to secure your wireless network.

Bookings and advice line: 0113 3550048

Understanding the risks of an open unsecure wireless connection.

So You Think Your Wi-Fi Network is Secure?

Wi-Fi networks deliver tremendous benefits. They provide the ability to connect to the Internet almost anywhere at anytime. You can connect in your home, office, or the coffee shop without being tethered to a wall jack, and Wi-Fi is built into most laptop PC's.

Wi-Fi is also easy to set up if you don't think about security. Out of the box, you can quickly turn on your wireless network, and connect your without much effort. Without security however, everyone else can connect to your network with the same ease. If you don't take the steps to secure your wireless network everything you do over the wireless network can also be seen by hackers up to a mile away.

Who Needs Wireless Security?

One of the common reasons why users don't secure their Wi-Fi networks is that no one wants access to their network or that there is no important information on the network to worry about. Hacking is less about joy-riding on someone else's network and more about the financial payoff that can be gained by stealing confidential or personal information over the network. In fact, over half of cyber crimes are now committed over Wi-Fi networks, because they provide anonymity that wired networks don't provide.

With a poorly secured Wi-Fi network, a wireless hacker can read your email, see the websites you visit, and even access files on your system that aren't properly secured. Your e-mail username and password are easily picked off an unsecured Wi-Fi network when every time your email is updated. Once your e-mail account is compromised, it becomes very easy to gain personal identity.

Another common misconception is that Wi-Fi can only be accessed from 300 feet away. With a £25 antenna, a hacker can access your Wi-Fi network from a mile away, out of sight and undetectable.

War drivers looking for unsecured networks, locate and record Wi-Fi networks. They then share those locations on websites such as www.wigle.net for other war drivers and hackers to find and user those networks.

Why Are So Many Networks Unsecured?

While setting up a Wi-Fi network is easy, turning on security takes some technical expertise and the ability to understand terms like WEP, WPA, 802.1x, and EAP. While wireless equipment manufacturers provide access to these security parameters, very few of them make it easy to understand, or easy to set-up.

Wi-Fi Security for Dummies

There are 4 basic levels of Wi-Fi security: "Open" (unsecured), WEP, WPA-PSK, and 802.1X. Let's walk through these techno-acronyms and explain these basic levels of security in less technical terms.

  • "Open" is just that, open to all comers without any basic level of security. Like leaving your front door unlocked for anyone to enter, open networks are just a bad idea.
  • WEP is the lowest level of security available on most Wi-Fi networks. Unfortunately, WEP have fundamental flaws that make it easy to hack and software on the Internet can crack WEP security in 10 minutes. WEP is equivalent to locking your screen door; it may keep your neighbor out, but it takes little effort to break in.
  • WPA is the successor to WEP that is more difficult to crack. WPA is comparable to having a single lock on your front door, and giving a key to everyone you want to give access to. Keys can be shared or walked away with when someone leaves the network. The challenge with WPA is removing someone requires the entire network to be re-keyed and new keys re-distributed to valid users.
  • "802.1X" is called enterprise-level security because it provides the highest level of Wi-Fi security available. 802.1X is widely deployed by Fortune 500 companies and eliminates the common key problem by providing a unique key for each valid user every time they enter the network. This is analogous to the room key used in hotels. Each authorized user gets a new unique key every time they enter the network valid only for the time they are on the network.

 

Millions of people in the UK are still failing to secure their internet connections, according to a recent report, leaving them open to ‘piggybacking’, whereby other people surf the net using your internet connection.

Many households have installed wireless broadband in recent years, attracted by the flexibility it offers. Wi-fi allows you to access the internet wirelessly within a given range, for example from anywhere in your home. However, if you fail to secure your internet connection with a password & security, people nearby could gain access to the internet and your computer files at your expense.

A survey found that one in nine people have used someone else’s internet connection without permission, yet one in six households still do not protect their wireless router from internet theft.

While 46% of ‘piggybackers’ said they use other people’s connections to check emails and browse the web, 12% said they hijack someone else’s connection every day, regularly downloading content to their own computers. Four out of ten broadband deals have a download cap, and charges are high if you exceed this limit, so if someone hijacks your connection, you may receive an unexpectedly hefty bill at the end of the month. Hijackers could also use your connection to download obscene or politically extreme content, something which you could end up being charged for under new laws.

WHY RUN THE RISK ?

It's frightening what some home WiFi users are leaving themselves exposed to. Anyone in the vicinity could easily use their WiFi connection to visit "dodgy and illegal websites”, should this activity be discovered by the authorities, who will track them down through via the ISP, it will be on the WiFi owner’s door which the police will be knocking. It also begs the question if someone wanted to "get away" with visiting dodgy websites, by deliberately leaving open their WiFi connection and playing the fool, could that be a legal "get out" clause? Who knows when it comes to computer crime laws, which is well behind the times in the UK, in a population approaching 60 Million, there is on average of less than 10 people a year being prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act, with computer related crime tending to end up under either theft or fraud charges and convictions.

If you have concerns and wish to discuss with us your worry's about possible unsecure wireless connections call us now or use our contact form.

CALL: 0113 3550048 for free advice and if required to book one of our engineers.