Comments on: SQLAuthority News – Wireless Router Security and Attached Devices – Complex Password

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Mon, 31 May 2010 01:32:14 +0000

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By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Sat, 08 May 2010 02:23:59 +0000

Hi Harsha,

I think disabling the SID is something I never thought off. I will work on it. I am feeling uncomfortable that one has to do so much to secure themselves.

The good old days, when we had no worries due to wired technology.

Kind Regards,
Pinal

By: Harsha

Harsha — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:38:56 +0000

Hi Pinal,
Just saw you post, felt sorry for your little daughters pictures which you can still retrive using some software. I had the same router as yours(Netgear), I had it set up as @Marko had suggested here, disable SID broatcast, allowed only my machines MAC’s and set up WPA security, also reset the default router password(did u set reset the default router password ? i hope you did). Even after this there is no garentee that it is safe. Because still someone(hackers) can use app’s like airsnort or NetStumbler or similar apps to find the SID and spoof the Mac. So the best way is try to change your WPA key quite often.

Thanks
Harsha

By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Fri, 07 May 2010 02:48:30 +0000

Hi Imran,

This is good suggestion, however, I did not think of this when this happened. I will give it a try now. I really wish, I would have thought about it at that time.

Good point, I will still give it a shot.

Kind Regards,
Pinal

By: Imran Mohammed

Imran Mohammed — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:22:35 +0000

Hello Pinal.

You might be aware of this, I just want to bring this to your notice as a reminder, there is a way to get recover deleted folder /files from your hard drive, if you have not formatted it after you lost /deleted files or folders.

There are plenty of softwares available online, some of them are free too.

~ IM.

By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Thu, 06 May 2010 14:57:57 +0000

Hi Ramdas,

That is very true. In fact, I have decided to even hide my SSIS based on Marko’s suggestion and will change my default port from 80 as Harshu suggested.

I thought, I am all fine, but now looking at the suggestions of Marko, I am for sure bit paranoid.

I will act on it right away.

I change my key to very complex as current key was very easy. You never know when bad things happens.

Many thanks for comment!

Kind Regards,
Pinal

By: Ramdas

Ramdas — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:34:08 +0000

Wifi connections can be risky folks could bounce off your wifi if not adequately protected. Thanks for the article and feedback from others like harsu and marko.

By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Thu, 06 May 2010 07:46:00 +0000

Oh Marko,

This is great suggestions. Really great. Going add to my checklist.

Kind Regards,
Pinal

By: Marko Parkkola

Marko Parkkola — Thu, 06 May 2010 05:38:50 +0000

I’m no security expert either but I googled a bit and found out that WPA-PSK has vulnerabilities. There seems to be exploits and hacking devices in the wild now. So if you don’t really need WPA-PSK I suggest you switch to WPA2-PSK [AES] only.

You said that you changed your password to something complex. This is good. It blocks dictionary attacks at least.

Then the SSID of the system. Change it from the default. After that disable SSID broadcast from the WLAN router. You need to type the SSID by hand to your computers after it is not broadcasted anymore.

I don’t know if Access Control List is same as MAC address filtering but if not then you could try enable it. Put your computers MAC addresses in the list of allowed addresses.

Firewall. If your WLAN router has firewall or you have firewall between WLAN and internet, block all unwanted access from the internet. If your WLAN router has NAT enable it and it effectively blocks all unsolicited packets coming outside your LAN.

This is what I use at home and it works fine at least with Windows XP and Vista (and some Nokia phone which I can’t remember).

None of the above protects your network 100% (SSID can still be guessed as well as network key, MAC address can be changed or spoofed etc.) but together they form a solid defense. And if you are being paranoid enough you could try to install VPN above all this :)

By: pinaldave

pinaldave — Thu, 06 May 2010 04:05:07 +0000

Harsu,

Oh my god, I should have thought about it. I indeed had opened my port few months earlier when I was traveling to Sri Lanka. I am checking that right now.

Very good point, glad I have posted this blog.

Many thanks,

Kind Regards,
Pinal

By: Harsu

Harsu — Thu, 06 May 2010 03:23:52 +0000

Hi Pinal,

Its best that you change the default port(80) of your router administration. I don’t have a Netgear router but I am sure it is not that difficult to change.

Also, I had something similar happening to my PC when my firewall started warning of incoming connection. I figured out that there was remote desktop port open and forwarded to my desktop, which I opened long time back. So, I disabled the port forwarding. I think having a internet security is very helpful because it helps monitor incoming and outgoing connections.

Good Luck..