Lock Down Your Wi-Fi or the FBI Might Come Knocking

[Guest guest]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20110425/tc_pcworld/lockdownyourwifiorthefbimigh\

tcomeknocking;_ylt=AvLFwwuj5i_i4SzSJ_AtuIwnHL8C;_ylu=X3oDMTN2bzNpMmZkBGFzc2V0A3B\

jd29ybGQvMjAxMTA0MjUvbG9ja2Rvd255b3Vyd2lmaW9ydGhlZmJpbWlnaHRjb21la25vY2tpbmcEY2N\

vZGUDb2ZmZzE0awRjcG9zAzcEcG9zAzcEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNsb2NrZG93bnlvdXI\

-

Lock Down Your Wi-Fi or the FBI Might Come Knocking

Tony Bradley – Mon Apr 25, 1:20 pm ET

A New York man learned the hard way that leaving your wireless router open to

the general public can have some very negative consequences, and that the

authorities tend to act first and ask questions second.

You might think it's no big deal to share your wireless network with your

neighbors. But that altruism can bite you in the butt when a less scrupulous

neighbor, or a random stranger connects to the wireless network and uses it for

illegal activity. As far as the authorities are concerned, that illegal activity

originates from your wireless router, so you are the primary suspect.

So, what happened? Well, this guy left his home Wi-Fi network unprotected, and

a slimy neighbor piggy-backed on his " free " wireless network to access thousands

of child pornography images. He's not the first to fall victim to this scenario,

and, unfortunately, he won't be the last.

It is important that you lock your wireless network down. WEP (wired equivalent

privacy) encryption has as many holes as Swiss cheese, and can be easily cracked

in a matter of seconds, but even turning on such weak protection is better than

nothing. If you scan any given neighborhood for wireless networks, you will find

at least one that has no encryption turned on, and that low-hanging fruit is the

network that will draw attention rather than a network that requires hacking to

connect to.

But, to provide better security you should use WPA or WPA-2 encryption. With

most home and SOHO (small office / home office) wireless routers, it is as

simple as logging in to the Admin console, enabling the encryption, and setting

a password. However, as this recent incident demonstrates, " simple " is relative,

and enabling wireless encryption is easier said than done for many users.

The real answer, though, lies with the wireless router vendors. Unfortunately,

convenience and simplicity trump security. Wi-Fi routers are designed to just

work right out of the box. They live up to the claims in most cases--as long as

your only concern is being able to connect to the wireless network and start

surfing the Internet. But, if you also want your wireless network to be secure,

they don't work so well out of the box after all.

Users who are not tech savvy, and want the convenience of a wireless router

that " just works " are not likely to invest the time and effort to learn about

the inner-workings of the router, or to understand and enable the security

features. Wireless routers should be designed with encryption enabled by

default, and part of the initial configuration should involve stepping the user

through the process of establishing a unique SSID, and setting a secure

password.

For now, though, that ball is in your court. Do yourself a favor and take the

15 minutes to figure out how to log into the admin console for your Wi-Fi router

and turn on encryption to prevent unauthorized piggy-backing. If you don't, the

next knock on your door might be the FBI--and they might not be there for

pleasant chit-chat.